Resisting the Rancher: A Second Chance Cowboy Romance (Black Rock Ranch Book 2)

Jo Manning and Caleb Black were high-school sweethearts, then Jo left for a promising singing career and Caleb buried his heart. They both found independent successes; her, dreams of stardom, and him as a successful horse trainer at the family ranch… until Caleb realizes there is a giant hole in his heart where Jo used to be. Jo buckles under the combined stresses of an endless tour schedule, producing pressures, and her trusted manager runs off with her money. Her parent’s ranch next to the Black’s spread in the Colorado Rockies seems like a good place to return, lick her wounds, figure out her options, help her parents, give her son some stability, and avoid her former boyfriend, Caleb Black. Not a problem, right?

Readers who love clean, wholesome, ranch-based, second-chance, Christian threads stories interwoven with deep conflicts, real characters, and realistic situations… snatch up this series! Book two can be read as a standalone, but Caleb’s personal angst might be better understood after reading them in order. Caleb and Jo are easy to get behind, and both must make huge decisions – separately and together.  The independent choices are hard enough to make, the latter ones are almost impossible! Both find themselves dealing with real issues of aging parents and family concerns. Both wonder if the choices they made after high school were the right ones. The repetition of their worries, conflicts, and assumptions tended to bog the story down sometimes and descriptive details were scant. Otherwise, this conflict-driven, realistic novel is a gem!

Emerson Matthews