Once Upon A Cowboy

Whisper Creek Series – Book 3

By Maggie McGinnis

Synopsis

In this sexy Whisper Creek romance for readers of Kristan Higgins, Susan Mallery, and Molly O’Keefe, a red-hot cowboy uses some Montana magic to give a reclusive beauty her happily ever after.
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.

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Tina’s Review

Judging a Book by it’s Cover:
There is really nothing in this cover to convey that it is a Western Romantic Comedy other than the cowboy boots that she is wearing which is at odds with her fuzzy top. The synopsis is a tad cliche’ and I can’t help but assume that the female lead may be the stronger of the two in this story.
Looking Deeper:
Third-person POV. Although this is the third book to the series, you can read it fairly easily having not read the previous installments. That said, I’ve not read book 1, but *did* read book 2 when it first came out. The characters are all interconnected, but each have a unique story that can and will stand-alone
This is going to be a rough one to score… I absolutely LOVE Cole. His gentle, patient and caring nature is often taken advantage of by those around him. He’s the good and dutiful son that has put his own dreams aside for far too long, but never says a word. Jess… I really am not a fan of her adult decisions in reaction to her juvenile life left behind. This makes her difficult to connect with, both in the story with the other characters AND with the reader. Cole and Jess’s chemistry is too one-sided. She likes him, yeah, but she’s “afraid” and continues to push Cole away… he’s left to do all the work – again… just like on the ranch. It’s no wonder the poor guy hasn’t just said, “I quit. All of it” and walked off the ranch and straight to a new life. The secondary characters on the ranch are great; enjoyable, lovable, and fun while the ones back in NC add the necessary touch of “bad guy” drama. The dialogue throughout the story is natural and believable. The plot wasn’t horrible, but I just was not as engaged as I’d liked to have been even with the smooth, fluidity of the writing. There are a few minor conflicts along the way that are handled by Cole in his most heart-warming and utterly charming manner, yet the main conflicts remain until much closer to the end. It is only at about the seventy to seventy-five percent mark that I begin to feel that things are becoming truly and believably cohesive between Cole and Jess. That is NOT to say that it was poorly portrayed before, but rather that her “personality” did not quite allow for anything but her self-imposed stiff, impersonal, and aloof being. I waited through the entire length of the book, or so it seemed, to see what Cole’s retribution for the water balloons would be and was strangely disappointed that it never came to fruition. There really was not any predictability to speak of, but there were a few minor unforeseen twists. The conclusion was complete and solid, an epilogue is provided to slingshot the couples forward a few years and touches on a few places that were waiting in the wings to be finalized. Overall, it’s a pleasant read that flowed nicely.

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Author Bio:

Maggie McGinnis is a USA Today® Bestselling author  and Golden Heart® Finalist who writes humorous contemporary romance and cozy mysteries.

Her heroines are smart and sassy, and her heroes are ju-ust right … but only if they find the right gals!

She’s a member of Romance Writers of America, and is agented by the fabulous Courtney Miller-Callihan of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

Maggie’s Whisper Creek series is published by Random House Loveswept®, and her upcoming Echo Lake series will be published by St. Martin’s Press.

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