Lone Wolf Cowboy

What an amazing, emotional, dark, edgy, and inspiring story this was.
I haven’t had this kind of emotional connection to a story since Eagle by Janie Crouch and I have not shed as many tears as I did with this one since Redemption by Kelly Moran.
I loved every moment of the story, it just got deep under my skin. It had the raw feels, the utter despair that is so real and lifelike, I could feel the pain of the protagonist, as well as triumph and victory when the inner demons were won.
Vanessa has faced so much in her life, it was inspiring and encouraging to see her shine, clean from the drugs and alcohol. She had conquered the past, was doing the work with her dysfunctional family, facing the old teenage drama and trouble that set on the hazardous path. I loved how she had found her place in the world and was able to use the dark times in her life to shine the light to those who needed it. She truly is a heroine, a woman to admire.
Jacob was the perfect match for Vanessa, in all the possible ways one could imagine. He had his own dark secrets and regrets, he had his own hickups with his family and friends. Yet there was that man inside Jacob who was willing to stand up for and with Vanessa when needed, who had her back, who believed she was worth sticking around and saw the woman she truly was, inside out.
There were so many layers in this story, things I loved, like the victorious, inspiring, engaging story of Vanessa and Jacob, as well as the new side to Olivia, Vanessa’s twin sister whom we met in an earlier book. I enjoyed the banter, admired the work they did at the ranch, and swooned over the romance between them but even more swoon-worthy I found the support they gave each other in everyday life, that was so admirable and adorable!
The author has taken some very raw, difficult issues from real life, showing the hurt and pain, the true tragedies one can face, and made them into a beautiful, fragile, powerful story of redemption and conquering your inner weaknesses, finding your place, and finding your soulmate.
Get some tissues ready and let the feels come as you experience this remarkable story of life, love, and family drama…
~ Five Spoons!

I liked Jacob and Vanessa’s character growth and enjoyed seeing how Gabe’s idea for the family ranch to foster kids has played out since the last book. Things occasionally slowed down in the emotions department, especially with repetitive mentions about Jacob’s guilt over losing his best friend(s), and Vanessa’s addiction recovery, but there’s no denying the physical attraction between these two! Their romance was insta-lust and all that spontaneous heat combusted with fireworks.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. There was a yarn ball of tangled tropes to work through, but the romance was good and the character development stood out most. Jacob especially grew leaps and bounds. There are some heavy topics discussed, i.e. drug addiction, sobriety, and unplanned pregnancy to name a few-and while I think they were handled reasonably well, it was a lot to dig through.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I love all her books can’t wait for the next one

With the seventh book in her Gold Valley series, Maisey Yates takes us on an emotional journey of healing in LONE WOLF COWBOY. We’ve heard a lot about the past of Jacob Dalton and Vanessa Logan as we read their sibling’s stories, but now we get to the heart of what each of them have been going through over the years.

Logan can’t find his way through the guilt and pain of feeling responsible for a friend’s death. He’s just going through the motions of life and wishing he was anywhere else other than surrounded by family, friends and memories.

Vanessa finally feels strong enough to return home to Gold Valley to try to heal the rift in her family and prove to herself she can cope with anything.

I highly recommend this story to anyone who enjoys seeing a character work their way through their emotions and pain and come out better on the other side. This series is very interwoven, so even though it can be read as a stand alone, you will get way more out of it if you read the series in order and know the back story of each character well before diving into their own book. I always close the current book anxious for the next in the series to come along!

Let me start this review by stating that I am a die-hard Maisey Yates fan, and Lone Wolf Cowboy, the seventh book in her Gold Valley series was one I’d been eagerly awaiting because up until now, the brief glimpses I’d had of Jacob made him an intriguing character, one I wanted to know more about, and in this novel did I ever! This novel also unlocks the story about Olivia’s missing twin sister, Vanessa, and what a story it is. If you’re new to this series, I suggest reading these novels in the order they were written, but this novel does work as a standalone, and it gets 5 stars from this reader.

The novel opens as Vanessa Logan is returning to Gold Valley after a very long absence of almost a decade, and there are many reasons why she’s been gone and out of touch with her family for so long. For starters, she’d always felt like and been treated as the black sheep in her family, the one who couldn’t and didn’t live up to her twin sister Olivia’s perfection, at least in the eyes of her parents. She was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, and her parents, especially her father, made no attempt to hide his disappointment in her. But to a child, any attention is good attention, so Vanessa drank, took drugs, slept around and at 17, found herself pregnant, alone and having a miscarriage.

Enter Jacob Dalton, the EMT who showed up just in time to respond to Vanessa’s call for assistance. He helped young Vanessa through her miscarriage, kept the entire matter to himself, and, in doing so, became her hero, keeping both her pregnancy and miscarriage a secret, and although it takes quite a bit of reading to fully understand Jacob, and realize why he’s been the quiet, brooding one among his siblings, and why he’s been keeping his own secrets and guilt since he was 8 years old.

After recovering from her miscarriage, Vanessa leaves town and her judgmental family behind, and, since in her own mind, she’s never measured up, she accepts that as fact and begins one hell of a downward spiral, stealing, drinking, sleeping around indiscriminately for both money, sex, and drugs, and it all eventually leads to her having a serious drug addiction, an addiction which finally ended when she was given a choice to either go to jail or enter rehab and she chose the latter. It was in rehab that she found what became her salvation–art. She was finally able to express her inner pain, alienation from her family, and her rage by painting it on canvas, and it was through art and therapy that she finally learned to cope with and find sobriety. Five years of sobriety later, she’s ready to return to her home town and take a job at the Dalton Ranch, teaching art and using it as therapy to help deeply troubled youths and teenagers who are much like the troubled teenager she once was.

I was totally looking forward to Jacob’s story. He is the brooding Dalton brother, burdened down with guilt enough for a dozen men. After stuffing a terrible secret and self-blame down inside himself since he was 8 years old, he became an EMT, and eventually a firefighter. He was a womanizer, just like his father, and took nothing very seriously. It was surprising to learn just how troubled he was and why. Jacob could be the poster boy for self-recrimination, his most recent failing was choosing to stay in bed with his flavor of the week instead of going out on a call to fight a fire. His close friend, Clint, took his place and went to fight that fire instead, and he was killed when his helicopter crashed, leaving his pregnant wife, Ellie, a widow, and Jason blaming himself for his friend’s death, and after that, isolating himself in a small cabin at the top of a mountain and wearing his guilt like a shield to keep everyone, including his family, away.

Since Vanessa will be working at the Dalton Ranch, she’s renting a cabin 2 miles away from Jacob’s cabin, and when she first tries to start a fire in the fireplace, Jacob notices the cloud of smoke and once again, comes to her aid, puts out the fire, and this older and wiser Vanessa, can’t help but be attracted to her handsome but aloof rescuer. The chemistry between these two characters is explosive and impossible to ignore, but dealing with her own sobriety comes first, and healing herself means everything to Vanessa, as does making amends to her sister and her parents, but no one ever promised her that maintaining her sobriety would be easy, but it is easy for her to see that Jacob is as emotionally damaged as she once was, although he’s dealing with his issues by ignoring them rather than facing them.

What follows is a deeply introspective and deeply emotional story as these two broken characters come together, seeking solace, seeking to help each other, battling their own personal demons, reaching out to help troubled young people, and coming to grips with their own pain, their own failings, their own guilt, and with their growing attraction to one another, an attraction that ends up with Vanessa becoming pregnant, and Jacob agreeing that he wants to present in his child’s life, while refusing to deal with his emotions and his feelings toward Vanessa, who, through her own fight for sobriety, has made her the emotionally stronger individual in this relationship. So, will these two broken characters learn to heal not only themselves but each other? You’ll just have to read it to find out.

If you’re looking for a novel with a lot of action, suspense, and forward momentum, this isn’t the novel for you. But, if you’re looking for an angst-filled, dramatic novel dealing with serious psychological issues, lots of soul-searching, lots of internal dialogue, lots of pain, guilt, and self-discovery that will grab you by the heart and not let you go, I think you’re going to love this incredibly personal and deeply moving novel and it’s main characters as much as I did.

I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.

Although this book is late in the series, it can still be read as a stand alone, because the author provides lots of back story in the narrative for not only the two main characters, but all those in the periphery.

Although Vanessa Logan was born to one of the founding families of Gold Valley, most of her life she felt like she didn’t fit in. She did not feel like her parents gave her unconditional love, so pushed the boundaries, which forced her twin Olivia to try to be the “good one”. She turned to alcohol and then to drugs to ease the pain and did not even remember the act that got her pregnant at the age of 17, but does remember the bloody miscarriage on the bathroom floor and her hero, EMT, Jacob Dalton, who is the only one who ever knew about the incident. Afterwards, she fled to LA, where she hit rock bottom, until she was given the choice of jail or rehab. It was in court-ordered rehab, that she learned that she loved to paint and worked hard to heal and take classes so that when she does return to Gold Valley, to ace her demons, she is an art therapist, who is going to teach at the new school for “troubled, at risk boys” that Gabe Dalton started as his own redemption.

Jacob Dalton does not feel like he is a hero. He had a traumatic experience at the young of age ten, an event that he never shared with either of his brothers or his parents. Instead he acted like a wild, uncarrying, lazy kid. He became an EMT to make up for it, and when he realized that he couldn’t save everyone, he became a firefighter. But both his brother Caleb and their best friend, Clint followed him to become firefighter and ultimately lead to Clint’s death, leaving a widow and fatherless child. More guilt, forced him to also become a hermit at the top of a mountain. But for some penance, he agreed to help Gabe with both the ranch and school, which leads him back to Gold Valley and Vanessa on her first day back.

The heart of this emotional, but beautiful story is how two damaged people, fight their fears to heal and to help others. Neither believes that they will ever be fit for a relationship, but they have a hard time fighting the chemistry between them, which forces them to make choices they never thought they would have to make. It does end with a HEA. Maybe in next book, Caleb and Ellie will find theirs.

From what I’ve seen of Jake in previous books, I knew his story would be extremely emotional. I didn’t realize how much more emotional things would get when Vanessa was introduced. I wasn’t always a fan of Vanessa’s sister Olivia, but Olivia’s story Smooth-Talking Cowboy helped me to understand her. I went back to not being an Olivia fan for a bit in this one. Don’t worry, she redeems herself. I also didn’t make it a secret that I have a problem with their parents. Man, I just wanted to scream at them! So many emotions were pulled out of me in this story. Sadness, anger, concern, joy, concern, love.

Jake has so many more secrets than anyone knows. He has a certain closeness with his brothers, especially Caleb, yet they don’t really know the real Jake. He does all he can to keep anyone from knowing the real Jake because then he’d have to deal with his secrets, he’d have to deal with his guilt.

I love that Jake and Vanessa have a fire that cannot be denied, but then forge a tight friendship where they share things with each other they haven’t shared with anyone else. Even when they decide it’s best to deny their chemistry, there is still a pull between them. The downfall to letting someone in and allowing them to see into all of those emotional nooks and crannies is those secrets can be used to hurt. And hurt they did. It’s better to hurt someone and push them away before they can do the same to you, right?

There are so many ups and downs in this story, a real roller coaster. I mean that in a good way. I loved it all. Not only did I enjoy seeing Vanessa and Jake get their HEA, I am very immersed in the Caleb/Ellie story. I found myself speculating their relationship like crazy. Thank goodness I don’t have to wait long for that story…and it’s a Christmas tale to boot!

This review can also be found at https://allingoodtimeblog.wordpress.com/2019/08/09/lone-wolf-cowboy-gold-valley/

Whether you’re a long time Yates reader, or this is your first book of hers, you won’t be disappointed. The depth she creates in the characters in only 350 some pages is amazing. Jacob and Vanessa are about two of the most broken people. For them to find each other was fate. It took two broken people to heal each other. Yates does a fabulous job telling both of their stories that makes them so relatable. This book will leave you with a few tears in your eyes. In true Yates form, it will also have you laughing. Gold Valley seems like such a real place, and Yates does a great job pulling you in and making you feel like you’re part of the town. I love that Yates tells stories that are so real. A fabulous read!

“We’re all different kinds of messed up, Jacob. I guess it’s not really my place to comment on your particular brand of it.”

Vanessa has been an interest of mine since reading her sister Olivia’s story. I was wondering if she would get a book of her own and how Maisey would spin it. Knowing she had some addiction problems, and that can be a touchy subject, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever read her back-story. Well here she is and it is a great story.

Vanessa left town in a cloud of disappointment and addiction 10 years ago. Her family and friends were toxic for her and she just needed to disappear. Yes she could’ve let them know she wasn’t dead by the side of the road but they fueled her desires in a negative way. She needed to get herself sober, stronger and stable before even considering any type of relationship with the Logan’s. Being 5 years sober now, she accepts a job back in Gold Valley, the place it all went wrong.

Jacob Dalton is depressed, lonely and possibly on the road to becoming an alcoholic. He is fighting guilt through ghosts of the past and can’t seem to get himself back into the land of the living. He spends his days held up in his cabin high in the hills and on the edge of the land. To escape, to punish himself, to find strength, he doesn’t know why he feels the need to remove himself from society. As much as he doesn’t want to be anyone’s hero, situations keep finding him smack dab in that exact position.

Jacob and Vanessa share a history only the two of them know. He was there for her, years ago at her lowest point. He held her fate in his hands and he wouldn’t let go, he is the face she sees when she needs to draw strength in her life. Meeting him unexpectedly again, all these years later, has her wondering if he remembers her as well.

Vanessa starts work at the Dalton ranch in the new youth center they’ve built. She is teaching art therapy classes, as that is the thing that saved her during rehab. She feels a kinship with these kids and thinks she can reach them. Jacob also feels a kinship in how not to behave. He has the same attitude these kids do and can relate to the anger they feel at the world.

Vanessa and Jacob are drawn to each other, neither can control it, and the more they fight it the more powerful it becomes. There is a thin line between love and hate and when their emotions take over, passion erupts. Keeping a lid on that passion proves easier said than done and it takes strong willpower to keep away from each other. When an unexpected hiccup takes the wheel, they work together to be a team as best as they know how. But will it be enough?

I’ve read some reviews where people have said this is too dark for a Maisey Yates book, too much, too everything. But addiction, depression and guilt is too dark, too much, too everything. Addicts have different vantage points than the people they leave behind. More inner reflection, more pain associated with past events and personalities. I felt Vanessa’s handling of her family was right in line with my personal experiences with addiction and alcoholism. It isn’t light, it isn’t pretty, it’s heavy, it’s deep and it’s depressing. These sides of our culture need brought to light to not only show the bad side of addiction, overdoses etc but also the hope. Recovery and rehabilitation is a real thing. People can pick themselves up and refocus and succeed. Depression too is debilitating but can be overcome. Jacob has survivors guilt for both of his best friends, knowing honestly he couldn’t have changed the outcome but feeling no less guilty living a life of what-if’s. How many of us live the what-if life daily?

The quote I started this review off with was one of my favorites in the book. Vanessa realizes they are both screwed up, not one more than the other. But acknowledging this between them gives them strength to know they aren’t alone in it. Together they can weather any storm and come out the other side stronger, together.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy and once again, Ms Yates gets right into the nitty gritty with life and all her ups and downs. While this 5 star read was on the darker side, it wasn’t unnecessarily dark or depressing. It fits the story, it fits the characters and I’m thankful she wrote these characters for us to experience.

Oh my goodness y’all! I’ve been a fan of Maisey’s since book number one. This is by far my favorite. Her writing style touches me in a way I can’t describe. Everyone knows someone affected by drug abuse. When you read this, you read it from the addict’s point of view. It touched my soul. To know what a person struggles with. What they struggle to get through. Then to find love!? 5 stars all the way!