Holding Out for a Cowboy

The Murphys of Meadow Valley, Book 1

Casey Walsh and Boone Murphy had a bright future together—until tragedy tore them apart. Now, more than a decade later, the beauty-school dropout runs Meadow Valley's family tavern and steers clear of the boy who once stole her heart—no small feat in such a small town. When Casey's car breaks down on the way to an important interview, she's rescued by none other than Boone himself—on what was supposed to be his wedding day.

Boone Murphy was finally going to put Meadow Valley in his rear-view mirror, even if that meant selling his business and leaving his family's horse ranch behind. It also meant leaving Casey Walsh. Except when it came time to say goodbye to his hometown and I do to his new life, he couldn't do it. Now, he's back home, and his only dream is winning back the girl he's always loved.

©2022 A.J. Pine (P)2022 Dreamscape Media

Drawn out story

The guy is a sweetheart but of course he blames himself for things out of his control. The female character is self centred and untrusting.
The story is predictable and the mechanism chosen by the author to make it “interesting” is to past-present events back and forth, which makes it much longer than it needs to be.
There are many instances of immaturity or meanness that move the story along. One such example is the “clean slate” without dealing with the past thing. The ex is also inexplicably mean and the whole story with selling the auto shop is weird.

The narrator is good, even if there isn’t much variation to help differentiate between the characters.

Nice story

Good characters. Got a little slow in some places but kept you interested enough to keep going. Will listen to the next ones.

Flawed characters, my favorite kind

To me, this story was the perfect kind of romance, in that the characters were lovable, identifiable, peculiar, and very flawed. The plot was well constructed and touching without being syrupy, sweet although the ending was rather Hallmark like. I did like the Ohenry touch with a double twist at the end.

My only complaint is the female character tended to go on, and on ad infinitum describing her feelings. Otherwise, it was a delightful story.