Cassidy was looking for a home
and a place to belong…not for a cowboy to steal her heart.
Having lived through her
parents’ endless string of “matrimonial bliss gone wrong,” Cassidy Starr knows
when the odds are not in her favor. Divorced and humiliated, her faith on rocky
ground, Cassidy is through with love. She’s been bucked off that horse far too
many times. Instead, she returns to Wishing Springs, Texas, and the rundown
farm she’s inherited from her great aunt Roxie. She’ll reopen the strawberry
farm and a bed & breakfast and follow in her aunt’s footsteps, remaining
forever-independent, happy…and single.
Rancher Jarrod Monahan’s hands
are full running the ranch, looking after his ailing grandfather, and chasing
down a group of rustlers on the loose. He’s pushed his longing for a family to
the bottom of his list of priorities. Besides, he was in love once but ran
scared and lost his shot at happiness.
But suddenly, the biggest regret of his life has moved in next door with
a wounded heart, determined to become a spinster…and that’s a challenge that
Jarrod can’t pass up.
Jarrod sets his mind to breaking
down the walls around Cassidy’s stubborn heart. How can he show her that a
cowboy’s kiss lasts forever? For the good folks of Wishing Springs, falling in
love has never been so much fun to witness.
Kissed by a Cowboy is the
third book in Debra Clopton’s Four of
Hearts Ranch Romance series, coming after Betting on Hope and Counting
on a Cowboy. Although I wasn’t able to read the second book, I did read Betting on Hope and absolutely loved it.
Therefore, I was really excited to read this novel, and was unfortunately a bit
disappointed when I realized it wasn’t nearly the same quality of writing that
I had enjoyed in the first novel of the series. Now don’t get me wrong, it was
a good storyline and an interesting plot in theory, but to me it felt very
rushed and fell really flat. I hate to write bad reviews of someone’s novel,
but I also don’t want to lie, and I just cannot say that this novel is the same
quality as the previous one I have read.
Cassidy
and Jarrod are definitely wonderful characters, although I have to say I like Jarrod
a whole lot better. He fights so hard for Cassidy throughout the entire book,
and is really super sweet and caring and just wants Cassidy to be happy. Besides
that, he is a cowboy, and who can resist cowboys like Jarrod? No one, that who.
Cassidy, on the other hand, wasn’t really one of my favorite characters of this
book. She seemed a little too hung up on her divorce in my opinion, but what
really bothered me was the fact that she continually tells Jarrod that she
wants to remain single and doesn’t want another relationship, but she goes back
on her word time and again, effectively breaking Jarrod’s heart over and over.
Since I like Jarrod so much, I just can’t stand that she does that to him.
Another
thing I wasn’t very fond of when it comes to this novel is the ending. Of course,
it was happy, and I do love a happy ending, but Cassidy changed her mind a
little too quickly and painlessly for me. All along she fought Jarrod in
everything he did, and I just cannot reconcile that image with the ending in my
mind. On top of that—though this doesn’t have to do with the ending—many of the
scenes in this novel seemed a bit forced and lifeless to me. I hate to say it,
but it’s true. And I wish it wasn’t because I absolutely loved the first book
of the series.
All in
all, I did like the storyline, and I am still hoping to enjoy more of Debra’s novels
in the future, so I will give Kissed by a
Cowboy four out of five stars. I did like the idea of the book, and I do
typically like Debra’s writing, but it was just a little too cheesy and rushed
for me to award it more than that. I am looking forward to actually getting the
chance to read the middle book of the series, hopefully it will be more like its
predecessor than the novel that comes after it. And I would still recommend
this book and the whole series!
Happy
reading!
I received a copy of this book from the Litfuse Publicity
Group in exchange for only my honest review.
To see where I’m linking up, check out my Where I Party
page.
Photo creds go to my fabulous sister Allie, whose blog you
can visit here.
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