Welcome back to Sugarbeat’s Books!
Today is a review of Love Drunk Cowboy by Carolyn Brown AND a Giveaway! That’s right – I’m giving away 2 copies to Canadian and US residents!! To enter the giveaway, just fill out the form at the bottom of this post. If you leave a question or comment for Carolyn, I’ll give you 5 extra entries!
When I started to research for this post, I found this promo for Carolyn’s trilogy, which apparently has turned into quite a series of books. Since I posted the blurb on yesterday’s post, I thought I’d post this instead of a blurb – I think it is great!
A hot new cowboy trilogy from award winning author, Carolyn Brown! Saddled with an inherited watermelon farm, Austin Lanier wants to sell the place, slip on her stilettos and run back to corporate America. Until drop dead sexy neighbor cowboy Rye O’Donnell shows up and tempts Austin to trade her heels for cowboy boots…
Carolyn Brown’s new series, Spikes & Spurs, is chock full of her signature wit, down home appeal and feel good love stories. Taking city girls who trade in their stiletto high heels for cowboy boots, they find love in the most unexpected places, and with the most unexpected, but sizzling hot cowboys!
Hold on to your cowboy hats and settle in for a spicy story about a rodeo cowboy turned rancher and a city-girl turned farmer and the spirit of a matchmaking granny!
Love Drunk Cowboy starts out with Austin Lanier, a dyed in the wool, big-city business woman coming out to the country to scatter her granny’s ashes in the Red River. Her granny had had a long life, but it makes for an emotional day. Following a pre-arranged schedule of events, Austin and her granny’s best friend, Pearlita head to the Peach Orchard for lunch. There she meets sexy Rye O’Donnell, her granny’s neighbour whom she thought was the same age as her granny. She and Rye have chatted on the phone every Thursday night for quite some time. It gives Austin the opportunity to keep tabs on her aging granny. She’s completely smitten at the sight of Rye, and Rye is immediately taken with Austin. This is the beginning of a story that entertains and pulls on the heart strings.
Austin is an only child of a career women. Her mother is determined that she NOT stay and run the watermelon farm, but come back to the city to resume her promising career. The longer she stays, the more she doesn’t want to go back to the city. It seems that granny is controlling events from beyond the grave. She scheduled events to put Austin on the farm just as planting is starting, realizing that Austin is too soft-hearted to send the Mexican workers home without any work for the year. It seems that everything and everybody conspires to keep Austin at the farm – including Rye. Austin likes his large rambunctious family – they and granny’s friends make her feel like she belongs.
The characters of this story are many and varied. Rye and Austin and well suited and incredibly well written. The chemistry and rapport between them is outstanding! There are many secondary characters of note. Granny’s friends, Molly and Greta are a riot! Their addition of humor, caring and small town gossip is a great addition to this book. Rye’s extended family is also great. I’m hoping that future books involve some of these characters. There are several that I’d like to read more about! The ever-present spirit of Granny was written in such a way as to add humor to the story, but also show how much Austin was loved by this indomitable woman. Lastly, the various women in Austin’s family, her mother, aunt and grandmother I absolutely loved. They were a force of nature and it was fabulous to see Austin face down this force!
Carolyn Brown’s writing style allows the reader to picture the scene. Here’s an example of what I mean. Austin is walking into her first rodeo:
The excitement was a living breathing entity that wrapped itself around Austin’s shoulders like a mink coat on a bitter cold day. From the moment she walked through the gates and up into the stands surrounding the arena her heart raced. The smell of dirt, horses, and bulls and the noise of the crowd surrounding her all mixed together to stir her emotions even before she looked up to see Rye coming across the arena with his tall Texas swagger that made her blood boil.
This book was an interesting read. It took me a few chapters to become involved in the story. Once captured, I thoroughly enjoyed the weaving of the story! This is a romance, but it isn’t a “drop the laundry and get busy” kind of romance. Don’t get me wrong, there is tons of chemistry between Austin and Rye and they certainly steam up the sheets, but this is more of a classic love story. The focus is on the development of the relationship between them and their journey along the road toward being a couple than the intimacy between them. It was an enjoyable read, and one I would recommend!
I’m giving away two copies of Love Drunk Cowboy to Canadian and US residents. If you want 5 extra entries, just leave a question or comment for Carolyn! You need to fill out the form, however, to enter!
This giveaway is over – thanks for entering!
I love cowboys!!! Great post!
Thank you for stoppping by and for commenting!
Thanks for the great post and review. This sounds like a good book. I really like the idea of Austin and Rye having the sight unseen history of knowing each other through their phone conversations. Would love to see what both their reactions are upon meeting face to face.
How about a very short excerpt?
She put her hand in his and pure old sexual heat created sparks that danced around the café. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person.”
“Yes, it is.” Rye held her hand a few seconds longer, brushing her palm with his thumb and squeezing just a little bit, unconsciously wanting to take her home with him and never let her out of his sight.
If your book were made into a movie, who would you pick to play the main characters?
Megan Fox and either Timothy Olyphant or Blake Shelton. Blake and Rye have a lot in common since they both are musicians.
This looks great and I would love to read it.
Good luck in the contest and I hope if and when you do read it that you have a smile on your face all the way through it.
Barb – my form submitted when my cat stepped on my keyboard so info is missing LOL EMAIL me if I win! *hehe*
Question for Carolyn: Were any of your characters inspired by real people in your life?
Hi Chrystal! That is too funny! I guess you cat decided that you didn’t need to COMPLETELY fill in the form because you are special!!
All characters have the nuances of the people, both past and present, who have entered our lives. Maybe only for a minute (the way that man held a cigar between his fingers at the gas station in Nashville) or maybe the way that Aunt America (yes, I really did have an aunt by that name) wiped her hands on the tail of her apron forty years ago when I was just a kid…or maybe it was fifty years ago when I was just a kid! Little things find their way into a character’s make-up but to say that I based a character on a living person? No, ma’am. Please don’t tell my son-in-law, Todd. He thinks Rye is totally based on him.
Thanks for the giveaway!
Question for Carolyn: Why did you decide to write about cowboys?
A person writes what they know. I couldn’t write about a big city because I’m a small town girl, always have been. Cowboys in general? They’ve always fascinated me. Loved Bonanza and all those old western television shows. I’ve read almost all of Louis L’Amours books. My new favorite show is Justified, a modern day cowboy and I still love western books, although I’ve moved to western romance.
Question for Carolyn How long did it take you to write Love Drunk Cowboy? Great post and review. Thanks for the giveaway!
Now that is a tough question. I write, then I rewrite and polish, and then most of the time my fabulous editor finds ways to strengthen the novel and I write again. Maybe the best way to answer it is to say that I usually write about five books a year.
Sounds good! I look forward to reading it 🙂
Have fun in watermelon country and don’t forget to taste the watermelon wine!
Did you base any of the character off of yourself?
Of course, I look just like Austin Lanier!
Wait a minute… hold on! I had to duck under my desk to dodge those lightning bolts jumping around me. Now I have to tell the truth or they’ll start again. No, ma’am! I’m told that I write just like I talk but all of my characters are fictional. I would like to grow up someday and be like Molly, though. Wear muu-muus, eat ice cream without guilt and say whatever I want. Maybe instead of basing a character on myself, I’ll base myself on a character.
Barb: Thank you so much for the awesome review. I especially liked that you called it a classic love story!