A Cowboy for Christmas brings charm to chaos. Whether laughing your head off or crying your heart out, Richardson never ceases to deliver perfection. When two good-hearted people find themselves in over their heads and close to losing their hearts, it will take a bit of small town meddling to get them back on course. Darla and Ty are adorably, clueless. Caught up in the craziness, will they lose their chance at forever? Richardson blends old friends with new drama and delivers irresistible fun.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Jessa was just dumped by text and for someone who has such an open heart, she sure has trouble finding someone to love her back. 
Ever since Lance's mother left without looking back, he's been a love them for one night and leave them.
When Lance needs help watching his father, Jessa is there and he's starting to enjoy her at his home more than he should.
Jessa loves love, Lance wants to be a loner, and long held family secrets are bubbling under the surface as these two heat up under the Colorado sky. 

She might have sworn off relationships, but technically she hadn't sworn off kissing. 

I enjoyed how this one started off, we're introduced to the Cortez family of Lance, his younger brothers Lucas, Levi, and their father Luis. With Luis out following the rodeo circuit as a champion bull rider, their mother couldn't handle the stress of raising three boys alone and leaves. As the oldest, Lance feels it is his responsibility to take care of the family but Levi has serious anger issues with his father and ends up burning down a barn. The three boys decide Lucas will take the wrap as his record is squeaky clean but things go sideways when he gets charged as an adult and ends up going to jail. When he finally gets out, he leaves not wanting to deal with the small town always looking at him like he is a criminal, Levi can't stand the guilt and constantly travels on the rodeo circuit, which leaves Lance to run their ranch and work on becoming the best bull rider like his dad. I wish there had been more detail to Lance running the ranch and his bull riding career. They're mentioned but not really done anything with, we get a few glimpses of Lance practicing for World's, championship rodeo in Las Vegas, but I didn't understand how he ran the ranch year round and was such a top bull rider, when would he have time to travel to rodeos? 

The Cortez family drama kind of overshadowed Jessa, she grew up spending the summers with her father and school year with her mother, she craved a big stable family. Her father just died and she is trying to take over his animal rescue, Lance's father Luis tries to help her out with it. Like Lance and his ranch and rodeo, there wasn't much to Jessa's animal rescue. We know she needs money to keep it running but other than carting a pig around, it was definitely pushed to the side of her life and the story. Her friendship with two other women, helped to flesh out her character more but they never seemed to have longer, in depth scenes together to endear them to me more than series baiting. 

It's a gift when someone believes in you at a time no on else does. When you've lost some of the belief in yourself. 

I thought the first half was just a lot of lust attraction making up Jessa and Lance's relationship. Jessa is supposedly on a break from wanting a relationship and Lance is supposed to have this hardened heart but the storyline of Jessa not wanting a relationship seems abandoned almost as soon as she says it. I'm not sure until the very end I felt any depth to Lance's feelings for Jessa. They are thrown together because of circumstance and they never evolved for me beyond “sexy legs” and “hot bod”. 

This was an easy quick read, the outline for a deep emotional story was there but the depth and building blocks never showed up. The big ending had me disliking Jessa's character a bit as she acted fairly inconsiderately towards Lance and very blindly towards one of her friends, all because she “knew” she was right; family dynamics are tough waters to wade into and I just didn't think she gave it the consideration it deserved. There was nothing new or exciting to this story but, like I said, the outline is there for deep emotion with the Cortez family trying to heal from the lie they told that fractured the brothers. Details, depth, and fully fleshed out characters were absent in this one, but with two brothers left single, the author has a nice setup for their stories.

A heroine always looking for love in all the wrong places, a cowboy hero who staunchly guards his heart, and a family who need to quit keeping secrets. 
My Friday reading and eating :)

Hometown Cowboy by Sara Richardson purchase link

Vegan Jalapeno Chickpea mac & cheese recipe

Loved the seasoning on this one and added avocado

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I liked this story quite a bit. I was really excited to give this book a try after reading a novella written by Sara Richardson recently and enjoying it. I was not disappointed. This book is listed as the fourth book in the Rocky Mountain Riders series but works perfectly fine as a stand alone novel. Once I started reading this story I didn't want to stop and ended up finishing it in a single day. I am so glad that I decided to pick up this book.

Everly lives on a farm and runs a farm to table restaurant. She is finally living the life that she wants and is very happy even when her livestock gives her a rough time. Mateo is a bronc rider who decides to buy some land as an investment. He feels a lot of responsibility for his family and worries about what will happen when he can no longer compete. The land that Mateo buys is the same land that Everly rents and had hoped to buy herself someday. An entertaining series of events leaves them sharing a home on the land and getting to know each other a lot better.

I loved Everly from the start. She isn't afraid of hard work and is a very patient person. She had been living a completely different life but realized that it wasn't really what she wanted so she made some changes and really is doing what makes her happy. Even when things don't go the way she hoped they would, she is able to stay positive and try to look for new solutions. Mateo really was a good guy as well. He bought the land in order to provide security for himself and his family. He really found himself in a difficult situation and didn't want to cause any trouble for Everly.

I loved these two together. They had a whole lot of chemistry from the very beginning and I think that it grew as they got to know each other better. Even when they seemed to be the opposite side of things the pull between them never stopped. I liked that they were honest with each other and seemed to want to open up to each other. It was just a whole lot of fun watching these two come together.

I would recommend this book to others. I had a great time with this pair and couldn't help but want to seem them make it work. I think that this book was a really nice blend of great characters, a believable romance, some humor, and a few intense moments. I would not hesitate to read more from Sara Richardson in the future.

I received a review copy of this book from Forever (Grand Central Publishing).

Initial Thoughts
I liked this one. Everly and Mateo had quite a bit of chemistry with each other and their characters were very likeable. They did have some pretty big obstacles to overcome which was interesting to watch. There were a lot of interesting secondary characters that added to the book. 

Mateo knows his way around stubborn animals, but's he clueless when it comes to feisty women. Everly is one complication he doesn't need. She is as stubborn as a mule, but as tempting as the land is rugged. A big city girl with a love for the simple life, Everly sets out to make herself happy. When that goal finds her in Colorado working on a farm, she starts to make plans. Those plans do not include bullheaded cowboys. Mateo may be easy on the eyes, but a pain in every other sense. How can she possibly be attracted to a jerk? Prepare to be charmed by True-Blue Cowboy. Richardson puts ego to the test between a firecracker of a city girl and a hard headed country boy. Who will win this call of the wild? A side-splitting, heartwarming, irresistible good time.