👣👶🏻🐎 Her Surprise Cowboy 🐎👶🏻👣 (2020) - Book Review #HSCPrism
On Tour with Prism Book Tours
Her Surprise Cowboy(Heroes of Shelter Creek #3)
By Claire McEwen
Contemporary Romance
Paperback & ebook, 368 Pages
April 1st 2020 by Harlequin Heartwarming
Looking for redemption
Finding a future
Rancher Liam Dale is in Shelter Creek to make amends for his troubled past. He had no idea vet assistant Trisha Gilbert would be there too and he's even more shocked to discover he's a daddy! Trisha has good reasons not to trust him and a baby boy to protect. But now that he knows he's a father, Liam longs to transform this unexpected reunion into a true family.
(Affiliate links included.)
Other Books in the Series
About the Author
Claire McEwen writes romance set in quirky small towns and beautiful western settings. Her strong heroes and heroines take big emotional journeys to find their happily-ever-afters. Claire's books have been published by Harlequin's SuperRomance and Heartwarming lines, and have won various awards, including The Golden Quill, the Book Buyers Best, and the National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award. Claire lives by the ocean in Northern California with her family and a scruffy, mischievous terrier. When not dreaming up new stories, she's a busy mom who enjoys gardening, hiking, discovering flea-market treasures and wandering on the beach. A life-long bookworm, she always has her Kindle close by.
Tour Schedule
Tour Giveaway
1 winner will receive a $25 Amazon eGift Card (open internationally)
Ends April 15, 2020
My Review
Thank you in advance to the author, Claire McEwen, and Prism Book Tours for providing a complimentary review. A positive review was not required. All words are my own.
Claire McEwen is a new-to-me-author, but the Heartwarming line isn’t new to me at all. These are the “hope & inspiration” line that feature wholesome stories of love, compassion, and belonging; along with the happy-ever-after ending.
This is a clean read – no sex scenes and no foul or questionable language. There is talk of a one-night stand, but that happened prior to the opening events of the book.
Some content warning might include: drug use, pre-marital sex.
This is part of a series – “Heroes of Shelter Creek”. While I hadn’t read the others, I don’t know if they would be required to be read, but this seemed to work well as a standalone read.
I found this particular book to be slightly different from the normal Heartwarming books – in a more realistic way.
Trisha was an “overprotective” single mom of 11 month old Henry, her baby from that one-night-stand.
Liam arrives in California and can’t seem to do anything right. Trisha and Liam remember each other – and from there, Liam can’t catch a break. He’s there to learn alternative ways of farming, and eventually ends up learning about Henry.
But, everything Liam does – Trisha finds fault with, starting with shooting a coyote he perceived as a threat. Trisha is livid with him over it, despite not realizing that he, being from Texas, does things differently. Still, Liam is willing to learn.
In addition, after telling Liam about Henry, her anxiety goes into overdrive, much to the point it almost annoyed me. There were times she did soften. Although I knew where she was coming from, she didn’t seem to want to give Liam the chance to learn to be a father. She saw his attempts at trying to “be responsible” and “doing the right thing” as negative. She had some serious control issues, and that was almost off-putting.
Liam on the other hand, I admired him so much for stepping up to be a father. Considering he was 26, he was far more mature than his years. His biggest fear wasn’t failing. It was being discovered as a recovering drug addict, despite the fact it was painkillers that he was addicted to following a rodeo accident. Still, the gentle way he kept pushing forward and remained patient won me over. He came from Texas to California to make a fresh start. That’s something my mother and I did when I was younger – we moved from Texas to California, so that’s probably why I loved his character right off.
By about chapter fifteen, I was happy to see Trisha take a softer stance and the story became even more endearing from there. There were moments that she did still annoy me, it lessened. I enjoyed how her “friends” kept her in check when her mind wandered with “imaging upsetting things”.
My heart broke from Liam when he had to travel back to Texas for his father’s surgery. In addition, he had to return to get his family’s ranch set up since that was why he was in Shelter Creek. It seemed unfair that in that moment he had to choose between his father and brothers versus Trisha and his son. He also didn’t know when he would be able to return. His honesty was refreshing and so heart-warming.
Home isn’t a place, so much as where one’s family is. Heart-tugging, emotional, and endearing – this story of love, second chances, and redemption didn't disappoint.
Comments
Post a Comment