*I received a free copy of My Cowboy Promises from InterMix via Enchantress Design and Promo. This has in no way influenced my voluntary review, which is honest and unbiased *
Warning: This book includes mature content such as: sexual content, and/or drug and/or alcohol use, and/or violence.
Series: The Cowboys #4
Published by InterMix on 16 June 2015
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, LGBT, Romance
Format: eARC
Source: Enchantress Design and Promo
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A real man needs a real love…
To become the man he’s meant to be, one cowboy will have to be the man he never wanted anyone to know he was…
Ryder Dent is a true-blue cowboy. A devoted son, husband and father, but one who is living a costly lie. When they were both young, Ryder and his closest female friend Andy thought they’d found the perfect solution to both their problems—she was single and pregnant, and he was secretly gay—so they got married and raised Jonas together.
When Ryder gets hurt at a party, his son’s new pediatrician comes to the rescue. The connection between Ryder and Dr. Declan Winters is sudden, powerful, and undeniable. Ryder loves Andy and the family they’ve created together—but they both need more. Can they pursue their hearts’ desire without destroying the life they’ve built and losing the son they love?
Welcome to my stop on the My Cowboy Promises blogtour, hosted by Enchantress of Books Blogtours. I have my review to share with you, as well as an international giveaway and an excerpt!
My Cowboy Promises review:
My Cowboy Promises truly showed how difficult it can be to be different in a small town. Firstly because Andi and Ryder got married just after high-school, and then had Jonas. Secondly because their relationship really wasn’t what it seemed like on the surface, and for those watching from the outside. Especially the way they both put Jonas first in every important decision they made had my heart flutter for both of them!
Because they were showing the world what it wanted to see, Andi and Ryder weren’t living life fully, even if they were both content and quite happy with the way things were. However, once they realized there could be so much more, things started to change rather quickly, mostly based on an important truth Ryder shared with Jonas. Throughout the story, there is romance, hotness, sadness, and a quite snarky humor.
Well written, with a solid story and plot, as well as very likeable characters, My Cowboy Promises is the kind of story I want more of! I’m sure coming out to your family and community is never really easy, but with the right people on his side, it was still bearable for Ryder. The third person past tense worked very well for this story, as it allowed me to get to know the characters well, and also see the reactions they had without feeling like I was too close to the plot.
One of my favorite My Cowboy Promises quotes:
“Im organizing several games of Twister for midnight. I’m sure everyone will be well lubed up by then.
“Excuse me?” He could not have said what I thought I heard.
“With alcohol.” His eyes sparkled like he knew the best secret ever.
My Cowboy Promises giveaway:
About Z.A. Maxfield
Z. A. Maxfield started writing in 2007 on a dare from her children and never looked back. Pathologically disorganized, and perennially optimistic, she writes as much as she can, reads as much as she dares, and enjoys her time with family and friends. If anyone asks her how a wife and mother of four manages to find time for a writing career, she’ll answer, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you give up housework.”
Her published books include Crossing Borders, Drawn Together, and the St. Nacho’s and Brothers Grime series from Loose Id, ePistols at Dawn and The Pharaoh’s Concubine from Samhain Publishing, and Notturno, Vigil, Stirring Up Trouble, and All Stirred Up from MLR Press.
Author Links:
Website/Blog | Twitter | FB Author Page | Goodreads
My Cowboy Promises excerpt:
The hottest guy I ever saw was playing “Pop Goes the Weasel” on the piano while fifteen cagey preschoolers circled fourteen chairs. My father-in-law’s annual Fourth of July shindig—the biggest event of the year—was a family picnic. We’d set aside a play area for the littlest kids and I’d volunteered to supervise, but the piano man blindsided me and I nearly missed an outrageous hair- pulling incident.
Like a too bright pair of headlights on a moonless night, he was all I could see.
Mayor Calder Hamilton—a cartoon bear of a man with a white handlebar mustache—snuck up on me with one of those painful backslapping man hugs.
“Ryder Dent, you son of a bitch. Which one is your boy?”
“That’s Jonas.” I pointed out my son. “Blue plaid shirt, cowboy hat. Crass determination to win?”
“I know that look, I see it every day when I look in the mirror. But how can that be him? Last time I saw him he was half that size.”
Why do people always say that? Is it some rite of passage? Am I going to be surprised kids grow someday too? “We had to buy him a new pair of cowboy boots just last week.”
“He’s a fine-looking boy. Where’s Andrea?”
“She doesn’t come to these things to hang around with me.” I glanced toward the windows. “You’ll find her wherever there’s dancing.”
“She leaves you in charge of Jonas?”
“Gosh, yeah. Andi’s the social one. She likes to kick up her heels and I don’t mind if she wants to have some fun.”
“So have you met our new doctor yet? Isn’t he something? I have never seen anyone play piano like that.”
“That’s Doctor Winters?” The doc had started playing “Pop Goes the Weasel” like a Russian folk dance, all the while yelling Hai! Hai,! Hai! Hai! The music stopped and the chaos started. Jonas ended up on another chair.
“Go, Team Jonas!” I pumped my fist like a goofball.
“Yeah. Go, boy, go!” Hamilton was already tipsy enough to be unaware he was shouting right in my ear. It didn’t matter; I was going deaf from all the kids squealing anyway. “I’d like to ask your help with something.”
“Sure thing, Mayor. Shoot.”
“I need you and your family in a campaign ad”
“My family?” Good grief. Bitterroot’s founding fathers would shit in their graves at such an idea. “I don’t think we’d make a very good ad.”
“C’mon.” He punched my arm. “You and Andrea are both attractive. Jonas is a cute kid. You had to make some tough choices in the beginning, but look where you are now.”
“Uh . . . I don’t think—”
“I need a family exactly like yours to represent my campaign to the twenty-somethings. I need them to believe they’re important to me.”
Me and Andi? My stomach did a full 360, front to back, as if I was on a Six Flags ride. Mayor Hamilton wanted some picture-frame perfect family, and we were not it. Plus, we hadn’t exactly voted for him. “I’ll ask Andi about it, but—”
“Andrea’s dad just told me he’s backing me all the way again this next election.”
“Is he?” That figures. Her dad likes politicians to owe him.
“So you just tell her you’re doing it, okay?”
“Sure, I’ll mention it, but—”
Hamilton’s wife, Sally, came up to collect him. “C’mon Cowboy. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
She grabbed his hand and, after a good-natured tug-of-war, they left together. I breathed again. Andi’s dad ran one of the most successful ranches in the area. If he wanted to see my family on a billboard, I’d have to figure a way to get out of it or learn to say “cheese.”
It was pretty hard to say no to Sterling Chandler. I’m not sure he understood the word.
Shit.
The new doc managed to make “Pop Goes the Weasel” sound like a funeral dirge and the children all lurched around like little zombies. Then he turned it into a raucous honkytonk song.
Who was this guy?
Jonas got eliminated fourth from last but he wasn’t crushed by the loss. His attention shifted right away to the buffet, where the cater-waiters had installed several trays of Texas-sized cookies, all colored with red, white, and blue sugar crystals in honor of the holiday.
Musical Chairs, the Survivor edition, came down to two particularly crafty-looking femme fatales. One wore a jeans skirt, cowboy boots, and a pretty white blouse, and the other had on a daisy-printed sundress with lacy socks and jelly shoes. Lacy socks girl won by body-checking white blouse girl out of the way and pouncing on the last chair. She gripped the seat so tight with both hands no one could get her off it.
The new doc consoled the runner-up with a box of big-block Legos and gave the winner a play set with pink and purple Ponies but it seemed she thought she was getting the chair as her prize. Eventually her mom pried her up and they all wandered off to join the party outside.
Doc Winters was left to tidy up. I figured I ought to help, being family and all. Plus, it might get me out of small talk outside.
But the doc was the best looking man I had ever seen up close. I was bound to mess up and say something super stupid, and Andi was going to hear about it, and then she was going to tease me for the rest of my life, because she was just waiting for me to lose my shit over some guy.
And Doc Winters, M.D., The Yankee Doodler?
He could be the guy.
I’m definitely ready for more of these cowboys, and I have to say that reading the fourth book in the series without having read any of the others did not at all take away from my enjoyment.
Thanks for stopping by today, good luck in the giveaway!
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
I don’t participate in giveaways (too much work !) but I’m certainly adding this to my list 😉 I also loved the author’s presentation ! We have a couple of gay neighbors in our village and I know it’s hard for them, though they’re very nice guys…
LOL Iza, too much work indeed 😉 I do participate in giveaways every now and then, and lately, I’ve been quite lucky, too!
I think here in Geneva, it’s quite OK for those who are gay, which is a very good thing!
I’m definitely going to read this one – and probably the whole series. The excerpt has me really curious, Lexxie. I’m wondering how this marriage is working when the wife is waiting for her hubs to ‘lose his shit over some guy.’ And that you said Maxfield did so well with showing how hard it is to be different when you live in a small town appeals as well. I recently read Collide (Riley Hart) and it’s set in a small town here in Colorado. I thought Hart did a good job with small towns and their feelings on being different as well. 🙂 Anyway, thanks for adding yet another book to my bloated tbr, my friend. 🙂
**BIG HUGS**
You are going to love My Cowboy Promises, Brandee! I’m going to read all the other books in this series as well, because this story was so well done!
I’m sorry / not sorry for helping you add more books to your Mt. TBR *evil grin*
*BIG HUGS*
Yay, glad to hear it was well written and easy to like the characters
It really was, Brandi!
This sounds like a really good story. I love how this read seems like it’s very realistic, with happiness, sadness, and romance. I love snarky humor also. I hope Andi and Ryder are able to find the happiness they both deserve. Great Review Lexx 🙂
It was really well done, Lindy, and I loved how the two main characters were so protective of each other!
Even though there are a lot of cowboy books, it is odd that I hadn’t read one until earlier this year. I don’t know why I waited so long, because I think that cowboys have hoards of appeal. Anyway, I really liked the couple that I have now read. I will check out the first in this series. Thank you for the review and the wonderful goodies that gave me some insight into this series.
My heart just swoons for cowboys, Suzi! And here, because of the small town, the fact that there was a couple by the same sex, it made the story even deeper 🙂