I Won the Bookmarking It September 2022 Giveaway, To Tame a Cowboy

Sometime last year I came across Bookmarking It’s account. Every month they post a list of challenges and for every book post challenge you complete you are entered to win a free book.

Most of the time I wouldn’t really plan out a post based on the theme but I would instead just see which prompt my planned post matched up with. It is always fun for me to see how many I can align with.

I ended up winning the September giveaway, a copy of To Tame a Cowboy by Jody Hedlund.

For September I was able to fulfill the following prompts:

Day 2 Second Chance Prompt: I was able to check this off with The Secret Book and Scone Society by Ellery Adams.

Day 5 Unique Retelling Prompt: My review of The Emma Project by Sonali Dev, a retelling of Emma fit the bill.

Day 13 Strong Heroine Prompt: The character of Elizabeth Bennet and Mrs. Lanyon in An Appearance of Goodness by Heather Moll, both fit that description.

Day 20 Hispanic Character Prompt: I reviewed Mexican Gothic for my Catherine Morland’s Reading List; which was perfect for this prompt.

My book arrived and I planned to read it, but I put it on my to-read pile and completely forgot all about it.

But then I won Bookmarkingit’s March 2023 giveaway and knew I needed to read the previous giveaway win and review it right away.

I have to admit I didn’t think I would enjoy this book, what with its title “To Tame a Cowboy”, I thought this would be something like a girl who falls in love with the guy who has way too many red flags and they shouldn’t be together but do end up together.

Hmm…?

I was wrong about that, I actually enjoyed this book a lot. And even though it was book two in the series, I was still able to follow along and not be too lost in the series. I always like when books in a series can be just as alone.

To Tame a Cowboy (Colorado Cowboys #3) by Jody Hedlund

The book starts off with Savannah Marshall, living on her father’s ranch in Colorado; the daughter of the famous Cattle King. Her family had a lot of money, but the Civil War and some bad investments caused them to lose quite a bit of their wealth. Her parents want to be rich again and return home to Georiga, but are unable to. The Marshalls also lost their son and all are grieving.

Chandler Saxton has moved from Georgia to Colorado and Mr. Marshall really took to him. Chandler wants to marry Savannah and inherit the ranch, planning on giving the Marshalls money to invest again and send them back home to the South.

All is great…except Savanah doesn’t want to get married to Chandler. She wants to continue her dream of being a veterinarian, but struggles with wanting to honor her parents and help them achieve their dreams.

Trying to figure out what to do, Savanah flees a couple days before her wedding to in order fill the open position of veterinarian.

Brody McQuaid is one of five McQuaid siblings that moved out to Colorado. Wyatt McQuaid is the eldest and started his cattle ranch when the mayor and him struck up an unusual bargain, the mayor would invest in the ranch as long as Wyatt married and helped civilize the town; he marrying mail-order-bride Greta Nilsson.

Flynn McQuaid is the second sibling who is also part owner of the ranch. A few years back he agreed to help renowned botanist Dr. Powell and his granddaughter Linnea; that scientific trip turning into a romantic one.

Dylan is sibling number four and is currently only focused on having a good time. He likes to whoop it up, drinking, gambling, and visiting ladies of the night.

Ivy is sibling number five, raised out west with older brothers she grew up roping, riding, and shooting as well as any other man.

Sibling number three is the one this book focuses on. Brodie was always a good man, a fantastic horse trainer, crackshot, and aspiring artist. When the Civil War broke out, Brodie decided to fight for the Union and when it ended came back with both physical and mental scars. Suffering from PTSD and a short fuse, his recovery has been long and has caused quite a number of problems for his family. He tries, but it seems likes they littlest thing can cause him to fly off the handle.

So when Brodie sees notorious bronco buster (horse trainer specializing in taming wild stallions), abusing a mare he steps in. The two start fighting and it gets ugly fast, they only stopping when Savannah steps in and helps the horse. Brodie pays the punched out bronco buster and the two head out to the McQuaid ranch to settle Savannah in as the new vet.

Flynn is more father than brother to his younger siblings; and while he doesn’t trust a female vet he decides to hire her as he sees how her presence seems to bring Brodie alive again. He agrees to hire her, but ONLY if Brodie watches out for her and attends every vet outing with her. That works out fine for Brodie has he is extremely attracted to Savannah and wants to be with her.

Brodie figures out who Savannah is right away and gets the real story of why she is out here. He respects her privacy and won’t tell others who she really is, the Cattle King’s daughter, but at the same time tries to discourage her from marrying Chandler Saxton. Brodie admits his attraction to her early on, but his dislike of Chandler is more than his romantic feelings, Chandler is a real jerk.

The two grow close as Brodie encourages and supports Savannah’s decisions and also helps embolden her to figure out what she wants in her life and what she wants to go after. He also tells her that her choosing not to sacrifice herself for her parents happiness isn’t necessarily being dishonoring. Most of all he encourages her to try and talk to her family about what she wants.

Savannah helps Brodie calm down and inspires him to restart his relationship with God, also pointing out to him that there is more to him than just the evils of war that he went though; and that he is more than what he did. She also supports him and helps him begin to truly recover from what he went through.

Savannah and Brodie bond over horse training and trying to protect the wild mustangs. In order to save these wonderful animals, they decide to lead them away from the civilized parts of Colorado; Savannah eager to join in with Brodie, Dylan, and Ivy.

While on the trip, Brodie takes Savannah out on a picnic, hoping to woo her and convince her to choose him over Chandler; when a freak storm comes up. The two try to get back to the others but end up having to make do in a sad little lean-to cabin and only one bed. The two are stranded out there for a while, with Savannah growing deathly ill.

Brodie is able to help her survive until they can try and get out, running into a search party and helping her get saved. But that’s when the real trouble starts. With Savannah too ill to talk and Chandler turning out to be a power crazy, angry, narcissist who doesn’t want any man touching his woman; eager to get rid of Brodie and get back at him for touching Savannah. To get even, Chandler stirs up the town and rustles up a mob to hang him.

Grab your torches and sharpen your pitchforks!

Can the McQuaids save their brother in time? Or will Brodie have gone on his last ride?

From Supernatural

I actually became quite invested in this story, a lot more than a thought I would be. Brodie turned out to be a well written romantic hero, not exactly my ideal type, but I was rooting for him to end up with Savannah. The ending was written very well as I thought it would end one way, but Hedlund threw out a couple curveballs.

I also really like how they wrote Savannah. One of my biggest complaints about authors is when they make their female character very meek and submissive at home; but then when they meet their romantic hero they are suddenly super empowered. With this Savannah was strong willed in some ways, but also a people pleaser and one to give into others. It’s only after being encouraged and supported by Brodie who pushes her to say what she thinks and go for what she wants that we see a change in character and a woman willing to stand up for herself. Very well done.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this for Jane Austen fans as I didn’t really connect her to any Austen character except maybe Savannah had a little Jane Bennet in her. However, I would recommend it for any one looking for a Christian western historical romance.

For more giveaway reviews, go to I Won the SaChasi Blends Giveaway

For more westerns, go to Dark Times on the Ranch: Ramrod (1947)

For more Christian fiction, go to I Won the Tea and Me Blog & Harts of America Giveaway

For more historical fiction, go to Bewitched, Body and Soul

The Emma Project

The Emma Project (The Rajes #4) by Sonali Dev

When I first read Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev and really enjoyed it, but each book since then has gotten worse and worse.

Before I read this book I suspected that I wasn’t going to like this book from the previous one as the person who is supposed to be Knightley is terrible. I mean she is manipulative, takes advantage of Yash, and exhibits truly horrible abusive behavior as she tries to force him to stay with her.

But I tried to keep an open mind, even though those actions are nothing like Mr. Knightley. But I was over this book in the beginning pages.

Picking up were we left off in Incense and Sensibility; we have Knightlina (Naina)/Mr. Knightley and Vansh Raje/Emma are in the balcony after Yash won the governor’s seat in the previous book, and they are joined by Yash (Edward Ferrars) and India (Elinor Dashwood) who have left his party for the balcony to get it on. They are then joined by his sister Nisha and brother-in-law Neel Graff who have also left the party to get it on. They interrupt them and then who should come along but Ashna Raje and Rico Silva who are also getting it on. The only one missing is DJ and Trishna. And lo and behold, they have been there in the pool house the whole time. Really? There is a fine like between cute and saccharine; with this being the latter.

Naina has a foundation she has been working on and was supposed to get an endowment from Jiggy Mehta but after she and Yash are a no go he has instead given it to her and Vansh forcing them to work together. Vansh has been traveling around the globe helping people, but all Dev seems to want to talk about regarding his personality is that “he’s hot”. We don’t really know much else about him. Vansh agrees to take the money and will create an app to solve homelessness. Why has he concentrated on homelessness? Well he found a guy working on Yash’s campaign who is homeless and it opened his eyes to the fact that homelessness can exist in his home town. Even though he’s 24 and from the Bay Area, he’s never seen homelessness before 2022. Wow, homelessness in the Bay Area has existed before I was born. And I’m older than Vansh. I know this is supposed to make me “feel” for Vansh; but instead just makes me think wow this guy is so privileged that he’s been all around the globe and just now realized that gee whiz homelessness exists in America.

Seriously

Also they don’t even go over this but Yash can’t afford to pay his staff enough to live off the streets. Wow, he sure cares about the average man.

So not to be rude but I feel like this author doesn’t understand what it is like to grow up in California. I really felt that in the previous book a lot, especially as there is an absence of Latino people and no one even mentions the Latino vote which really angers me as a Latina who grew up in California, and has lived in the Bay Area, and knows what governors always talk about when they run. But I digress…

Anyways, Naina and Vansh fight constantly, yep that’s right they are NOT friends, and even though they fight through a majority of the book but for then for some reason end up falling in love and together blah, blah, blah.

And then Esha is suddenly healed when she meets Siddharta Dashwood the brother of India and China. And the two fall in love and are married even though their conversations barely make any sense.

Huh

So this book was really boring I was only a few chapters in it and skimmed the rest of the book as it held zero of my attention.

I really did not care for it as Vansh and Naina are nothing like their counterparts. To be honest with you I think Dev wants to write a story about expectations that Indian women face and abuse in Indian households rather than a reimagined Jane Austen novel, but the problem was she had already mentioned in her first book that she had four Jane Austen books planned out and I’m sure she was also contracted with her publisher, so she had to complete it those stories-instead of writing her stories.

And why do I say that? Because the character of Mr. Knightley is a kind and caring friend who loves his family and would do anything for them; along with anything for the one he loves-even if it means giving up his home, status of man of the house, etc. The way he treats Mr. Woodhouse, Emma, his annoying brother John; is very admirable; but instead that is replaced with a woman who has made herself be alone as she’s has been hurt and abused by her father. She not only has no friends but no boyfriends; and is sealed like a tomb. Do you see any similarities?

Then we have Emma, in the novel she is a wealthy woman who grew up with no one really pushing her or making her apply herself; getting bored she sets herself to matchmaking and helping a girl that doesn’t know her background or history. In this Vansh is a man that has gone around the globe in the peace corps but we never hear anything that he does and we don’t know anything about him other than he knows everyone and is “hot”. Like that’s it. His family also hates Naina and all try to dissuade them from being together. He wants to help Hari “sort of” but his main focus from page one is getting Naina in bed.

Ugh…this guy

She also took one of the most comedic books in Austen’s repertoire and made it depressing.

Also have you noticed that since the first book all everyone has terrible parents and are all in awe of the HSH Rajes. Like DJ had a good family- but Ashna’s parents were terrible; Rico had a terrible father and then he has an aunt we know nothing about and one Rico doesn’t even go to see or call when he’s back in the US so I’m guessing he doesn’t like her (I mean family day on the cooking show she wasn’t invited); India and China have a mom who’s not truly terrible but she’s not memorable or “the” family the Rajes are. In this the adoration is extremely thick!

When I first heard that Dav was going to stop her Austen retellings after this book, I was sad. I was interested to see how she would do Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey. But after reading this, I realized I am more than happy for this to be over. I think Dev was done with this series a while ago and that she needs to move on to writing other things, what she really wants to write now.

For more Emma, go to Jane Austen Children’s Stories: Emma

For more Emma adaptions, go to Is You’ve Got Mail Really an Adaption of Pride and Prejudice?

For more on The Rajes, go to Incense and Sensibility

For more Jane Austen adaptions, go to Beside Two Rivers