Rocky Mountain Cowboy Christmas
by Katie Ruggle
Synopsis:
In the heart of the Rockies
In the arms of a cowboy
One white Christmas can change everything.
When firefighter and single dad Steve Springfield moved his four kids to a Colorado Christmas tree ranch, he intended for it to be a safe haven. But he never expected danger to follow them to his childhood home…
Or that he would come face-to-face with the one girl he could never forget.
Folk artist Camille Brandt lives a quiet life. As the town’s resident eccentric, she’s used to being lonely–until Steve freaking Springfield changes everything. Brave and kind, he’s always had a piece of her heart, and it doesn’t take long before she’s in danger of falling for him and his rambunctious kids. But as mysterious fires break out across the sleepy Colorado town, Steve and Camille will have to fight if they want their happy family to survive until Christmas…
Review:
Camille and Steve-freaking-Springfield’s story was absolutely delightful. You’ve got to love when the socially awkward, almost-a-hermit heroine manages to snag her high school crush at last, amirite? Especially when he’s a firefighter single dad who sells Christmas trees…more than one character accuses him of near perfection, and they’re not wrong. I mean–he is Steve-freaking-Springfield…
Though kids in romance novels sometimes can come off as little more than plot devices, but not the Springfield siblings. Ms. Ruggle has given each of them their own quirky personality (including a socially awkward artist son who not only “gets” Camille, he also points out to his father when he’s inadvertently making her life slightly hellish), which made every time one or all of them showed up on the page so. Much. Fun. And not just because you got to witness Steve’s parenting style, which isn’t perfect but is earnestly endearing. And OMG, Zoe’s tendency to blow things up in her workshop…so funny. Honestly, probably 99% of the times I LOLed while reading this one, it was because of one or more of the kids. (And at least 5% of those also involved bacon…)
The only part of the story I’m still on the fence about is the suspense portion–I can honestly say that the “whodunit” took me completely by surprise. Which is good…? I even went back, searching for their name using the find function o my ereader to see if there were clues that I’d missed (I mean, maybe kinda sorta there were?) and I still don’t know. So…though I did like the drama and danger it introduced, I’m still not sure what to make of the outcome.
That will not, however, keep me from snapping up the rest of this series as fast as Ms. Ruggle can write them. I mean, Rocky. Mountain. Cowboys. Plus, surely Steve and Camille and Will and Micah and Zoe and Maya will show up, right? 😉
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
