“Chemistry so electric it flies off the page.”—RT Book Reviews 4 stars for Caught Up in a CowboyWhat will this cowboy risk for love?Colt James is back home on the family ranch, and he’s done taking risks. A car accident ruined his shot at a professional hockey career and messed up his love life, and he’s not taking a chance on anything that seems too good to be true. Especially not on Chloe … seems too good to be true. Especially not on Chloe Bishop, his nephew’s irresistibly charming teacher and the one woman he can’t stop thinking about.
Chloe Bishop liked her life the way it was—orderly, structured and safe. Life goes from managed to messy when Colt talks her into helping him coach a hockey team of rowdy eight-year-olds. Being this close to the cowboy she’s crushing on is dangerous territory. But when a real enemy threatens Chloe, Colt will do anything to protect her. Even if it means risking himself—and his heart.
Cowboys of Creedence series:
Caught Up in a Cowboy (Book 1)
You Had Me at Cowboy (Book 2)
It Started With a Cowboy (Book 3)
Praise for Caught Up in a Cowboy:
“Funny, complicated, and irresistible. Sometimes a cowboy isn’t perfect but you got to love him anyway.” —JODI THOMAS, New York Times bestselling author
“Full of exquisite heat and passion…an enthralling combination of intense moments, playful banter and great depth of emotion.”—Harlequin Junkie
“An appealing story of love rediscovered…enjoy this tender tale.”—Publishers Weekly
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I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Oh how I wish these stories were true! Colt is a perfect gentleman that would do anything for anyone, but Chloe doesn’t know if he is just being nice or if he could actually like her. Of course this book has two “head-over-boot heals” characters who don’t know when to quit assuming they know what the other person is thinking and actually use their words to communicate with each other.
There are a few side stories that make the story especially interesting- I’d love to know more about what finally happened to Rank!
Colt James, the youngest of the James brothers , is the guy who is always helping the community and its inhabitants. A community that helped him many years ago.
Colt has had his eyes on shy third grade teacher Chloe Bishop but he believes she’s out of her league. While Chloe, a woman with a childhood no child should live, feels he is out of her league. But fate puts them together and thus starts a “friendship”.
It’s a story that reminds us that what happens in our youth , does in fact affect us as adults. The scars and feelings are hard to overcome. But paraphrasing the author, it will destroy us or make us stronger.
Both Colt and Chloe will have to decide whether they want to give love a try knowing that life is messy but also rewarding, or play it safe and lose the chance of having someone to love and have their back.
This is another engaging story with complex characters by this talented author.
I was entrusted a copy of this book by Netgalley. The opinions expressed are solely my own.
I really love this series and Colt James is now my favorite cowboy! He’s so dreamy! I absolutely love Colt & Chloe’s story and the way their relationship develops so beautifully from friends to lovers but really to so much more than that. He treats her the way every woman wants to be treated; he is so protective and so genuine. He is also one of the hardest working all around good guys helping out wherever he can. Chloe is awesome! Because she is an elementary school teacher, she has some of the funniest non swear words I’ve ever heard! I love her! From the story line to the characters, Ms. Marts has truly given us a heartwarming and sweet story about two people who have hearts of gold who will do anything to protect the people in their lives. They aren’t perfect but they sure are perfect for each other. I honestly just adore this couple and their whole story!
Chloe and Colt managed to fumble their way through friendship & find themselves in a relationship. Chloe has low self esteem & has trouble believing Colt is actually attracted to her. Colt is trying to find ways to make sure they spend time together without being obvious about it. Chloe is a typical young teacher totally concerned with anything related to her students. Colt could tell that was a way to keep her involved.
Jennie Marts has a talent for giving her readers ordinary characters that they can identify with & relate to. Chloe is the personable teacher who cares for her students but is introverted & awkward socially. Colt is the uncle who loves his nephew & is attracted to his teacher but doesn’t know how to approach her. I really enjoyed reading the dance these two engaged in. They were both oblivious to how the other felt. Chloe’s students & Colt’s family added extra depth to the story & their feelings. I was pulled into the story from the first & was kept entertained.
It was hard for me to rate this one. The writing alone deserves a 5 star rating, but the self esteem issues with both main characters was too much. Colt wasn’t as bad as Chloe, and while I understand she had reasons for it, I’m reading fictional story. I would have loved for her to be able to overcome the constant berating of herself a lot sooner. It became monotonous to read her thoughts. And the no cursing? It was freakin ridiculous. I get not being able to curse around kids, but how about just not say them? Making up things like “forking” and “fudge nuggets” was like listening to a 10 year old. All that aside, I did love Colt and Chloe together. I thought they had great chemistry, and brought out the best in each other. I liked seeing the other brothers from previous books, and how their relationships were working out. The ending was sweet and perfect for these two. So, although this wasn’t my favorite of this series, it is still worth the read.
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book.
It Started with a Cowboy is the third title in Jennie Marts’ Cowboys of Creedence series, and compared to the previous 2 titles in the series I’ve read, this one left the most to be desired, and I cannot give it more than a 3-star rating.
The heroine, Chloe Bishop, is a shy, introverted, somewhat OCD, third grade teacher. She’s great with children, kind, caring and admits to only being kissed 4 times in her 30-year life. She has a terrible self-image, and low self-esteem thanks to her deceased father, who was a verbally and physically abusive alcoholic, whose wife, Chloe’s mother, left them both many years earlier. She’s had a crush on a handsome, charming cowboy, Colt James, for months, but she’s done nothing about it because she believes herself to be too dowdy, too unattractive, and too boring to attract his attention, although we soon learn that Colton James (Colt) has noticed and been attracted to her since the day they met. Chloe’s next door neighbor, Tina, has several children, some of whom Chloe has had in her classes. Tina’s a single mom with little money. She’s divorced from her violently abusive husband, Rank, who has been incarcerated for several years after she finally filed charges against him. Her eldest son, Jesse, is in the wind, troubled, and afraid that his father blames him for getting in touch with the authorities, although he didn’t.
One cold and snowy morning as Chloe was leaving for school, she volunteered to take Tina’s other children to the school with her, mainly because she had a good heart, and noticed that they weren’t warmly dressed, but as she was backing out of her driveway, a snow plow plowed right into her car. The driver was Colt James, who blamed himself for the accident, told Chloe he would have her car towed and repaired at his own expense, and then had Chloe and Tina’s children climb aboard the snowplow and drive them to the school, also telling Chloe that he’d be picking her up and driving her to and from her job until her car was repaired. It’s seems that Colt is quite the do-gooder around town, a volunteer firefighter, EMT, part-time deputy, and more. Chloe assumes that in keeping with his image, that his care of her is just one more good deed to add to his list.
Colt once had big dreams of a college sports scholarship and entering the world of the NHL (National Hockey League), but a car accident and the resulting damage to his leg ended that dream in 4 seconds. He was so surly during his recuperation that the girl who was engaged to him left, his long-held dream of a scholarship and career with the NHL was gone. He blames all his misfortune on a family curse, which seemed pretty ridiculous to this reader. For a handsome, kind cowboy, he too has a lot of self-doubt, especially because he’s attracted to Chloe but doesn’t want to let her know his feelings because of this imaginary curse. I liked Colt a lot, and couldn’t understand why half the women in town weren’t after him, and no mention of him dating anyone other than his ex-fiance was mentioned.
My main problems with this novel are Chloe-related. Since she teaches young children, she has come up with a slew of alternatives to using actual cuss-words, and while I found her substitutions both cute and funny at the outset, they went on through the entire novel, even when she was speaking with adults or even talking to herself and boy, did it got old–fast! My other issue was her seemingly endless self-doubts due to her being a chubby child who was the victim of her father’s verbal abuse. Even once she and Colt get together, her self-recriminations, self-doubt, and low self-esteem caused her untold and unnecessary pain since she couldn’t understand why he’d want her as anything more than a friend, and these negative thoughts and behavior simply went on for far too long.
Meanwhile, Colt is seeking ways to keep Chloe around, even teaching her to skate when the local kids wanted him to coach their newly formed hockey team. But that led to even more problems once their physical relationship began. For a woman who was admittedly the recipient of only 4 kisses in her lifetime, why was there no mention of the fact that in all probability, Chloe was in all likelihood a virgin. Yes when these two hook up, she’s ready, willing, able, and bold–certainly not the behavior of the shy, introverted, repressed virgin as portrayed leading up to this point in the novel.
I liked Colt enough to be rooting for him and Chloe to finally admit their feelings for one another, but things went from one misunderstanding to another, each person not trusting the intentions of the other. When Tina’s violent ex-husband is released from prison and attacks Chloe, who stands her ground to protect Tina’s children, Colt saves the day and becomes her protector, moving her into his home on the family ranch, where things certainly heat up, but again, neither of them can get past their own issues or admit to anything more than friendship
While I liked this main characters, aside from hearing about their never-ending insecurities, I kept wanting to slap both of them when their internal dialogue about their own self-doubts led to page after page after page of self-recriminations and second-guessing each others’ motives and such a wariness of revealing how they actually felt about each other, and I desperately wanted to slap each one of them and tell them to “get over it!”
What saved this novel for me were the secondary characters–Tina and her adorable children, the danger posed to Tina’s eldest son, Jesse, Chloe’s cat, Colt’s golden retriever, Colt’s rowdy family members, and the fact that at heart, and despite their feelings of inadequacy, Chloe and Colt really did work well as a couple of kind, generous, hardworking people with good hearts and a real chance for happiness, although the eventual HEA ending was a complete turnaround, literally and figuratively, and it simply happened too fast.
While this wasn’t a bad book, it simply wasn’t up to the high expectations I had for it after reading and loving the first two novels in this series. It works fine as a standalone, and if the aforementioned issues don’t get to you the way they got to me, it’s a book I think you’ll enjoy, although I do recommend reading the books in this series in the order in which they were written, simply for the background information.
I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.
This is the third book in the series about the James brothers of Creedence, Colorado. The first book was about oldest brother, Rockford, NHL hockey star and the second about middle brother, Mason. This is about youngest brother, Colt, who we had glimpses of in the other 2 books.
Colt could have been a hockey pro too, as he was even better than Rock, but an accident caused by his own carelessness cost him, his hockey career, girlfriend and college scholarship. He got it in his head that he is cursed, so spends most of his spare time, when not working on the family ranch, the Triple J, helping others. He tries to avoid the attraction he has for grade school teacher, Chloe Bishop. Chloe also has a head full of negative self talk. She was brought up by an abusive father after her mother walked out on them. She can’t understand why someone as gorgeous as Cole would be interested in a frumpy school teacher, so when he is threaten by her next door neighbor’s ex, she assumes that Colt is just helping her as a friend. The two of them are like yo-yos, giving into the attraction and then letting the negative voices in their heads, push the other away. This is so real. Will the thought that they might lose the other, force them to finally open up and express their fears of love and loss?
I received a free, advanced copy of this book from NetGalley.com. This is my unbiased and voluntary review. While it can be read as a stand alone, why would you want to when their mother, Vivienne raised 3 such irresistible men? The characters are wonderful, the plot compelling and the narrative masterfully written. In addition the author includes both a skating and self defense lesson, provided by Colt to Chloe.
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Avid Reader –
M/F Romance
Triggers: Domestic Abuse
Colt is a cowboy through and through. Despite having some rough times in his past, when he was young, he now wants to make sure that the people of his small town know how much he appreciates their help. He loves his brothers and his family, but there is one woman who has caught his eye and while he might not quite know how to approach her, he knows that he’ll find a way.
Chloe is a woman who is trying to overcome her past as well. Despite being an amazing teacher and friend, Chloe is lonely. She doesn’t have great self-esteem and when she thinks that she’s caught the eye of a hunky cowboy, she’s not quite sure how to handle the attention. Old insecurities rear their ugly head. When her neighbor kids are endangered by their absent and dangerous father, she has to make sure she can protect the kids and herself.
Colt is not letting Chloe out of his sight. When he realizes that she might be a target for the angry dad next door, Colt makes it his mission to protect her.
These two dance around each other until one of them is brave enough to say what they both are feeling. However, with old insecurities and superstitions following them around, they will have to decide if their relationship is something that can get off the ground.
It’s a sweet story that follows a predictable storyline. However, it was enjoyable.
Reviewers received a free copy of this book to read and review for Wicked Reads.
Check out our It Started with a Cowboy Blog Tour post on Wicked Reads at http://bit.ly/WRStartedWCowboy
The sexy, big-hearted cowboy and the introvert, organized school teacher have been dancing around and secretly pining for each other for months. When she runs her car into his snow plow it gives him a chance to spend time shuttling her to and from school until her car is fixed. And when danger breaks through her front door, he vows to keep her safe.
The premise for this book was creative, with Chloe and Colt accidentally running into each other in the most literal sense, and I really liked both of these characters. Colorful secondary characters, adorable kids, a finicky cat, frolicking dog and plenty of danger and drama all set this up for a terrific read. The thing I couldn’t get past was the insecurities of both Colt and Chloe. A little to make the point in the reader’s mind is reasonable, but the excessive internal dialogue of “I’m not worthy,” their repeated self-sabotage, and more assuming than communicating caused me to lose respect for the characters and lose interest in the outcome of their story. Then it was like a switch had been flipped, and the resolution of the conflict was too abrupt and unconvincing in light of the challenges the characters faced.
This is my first book by this author, and I was really looking forward to reading it. It has all the elements to make it an excellent reading experience, and if you’re not bothered by Colt and Chloe’s feelings of inadequacy throughout the book you’ll probably enjoy their story.
*I reviewed an advance copy of this book freely and voluntarily, having made no commitment to provide a review and receiving no compensation of any kind from any source for this review.