Title: Once Upon a Cowboy
Series: Whisper Creek #3
Author: Maggie McGinnis
Genre: Romance
Blurb: Yoga instructor Jessalyn Alcott radiates peace, calm, and serenity—on the outside. Inside, she still feels like the broken, desperate girl from the trailer park. She’s got dark secrets she can’t share, which is why she never lets her relationships go beyond the third date. But when she travels to the Whisper Creek dude ranch for a friend’s wedding, Jess is enchanted by a cowboy whose deep blue eyes, dimpled smile, and rock-hard body make it tough to remember why she keeps running scared.
Cole Driscoll has struggled to find his place on a family ranch where he’s always played second fiddle. His future might be uncertain, but he’s sure of one thing: He wants Jess by his side. Easier said than done. When it comes to getting close, she’s full of excuses, and he longs to fix the hurt he sees in her eyes. Now that she’s at Whisper Creek, there’s nothing he wants more than to break down the walls around her heart and heal her pain with the power of love.
Thoughts: This is one of those books that I failed to connect with completely from the get-go. From the very beginning it just goes over-the-top when it comes to portraying Jessalyn as the girl from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks who does a lot of things she shouldn’t have. As usual though, life is pulling her back into a life she’d prefer to forget. Cole has his own issues, and they are both damaged in one way or another. It was an uplifting tale, and one I wanted to really just fall in love with but for one reason or another though, it just failed to suck me in and have me connecting with the characters on a level where I could feel what the characters were feeling. And I want that – I love when a book can wring emotions from me, be it from laughter or tears or some other emotion. Reading it, I just didn’t get that. It’s a good book, but for me personally it just didn’t lure me in.
Of course, it does have it’s advantages – sexy cowboys, for one! If you have a tendency to like Susan Mallory, Maisey Yates, Brenda Novak, etc. I think you’ll like this book and/or series just fine!
Rate: C
