Courting the Cowboy Author: Liz Isaacson
Series: Grape Seed Falls #4
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Format: eBook, Print
Pages: 213
Date: April 3, 2018
Publisher: AEJ Creative Works
A restaurant heiress, a dating app, and the cowboy just down the street she’s sworn off…
May Sotheby is the heiress to the ritziest restaurant in Grape Seed Falls. In business for over a hundred years, her father wants the restaurant in Texas Hill Country to stay in the family for generations to come, so he lays down some hard news for May: She has one year to find a husband or the restaurant where she’s worked since a teen will go to her already-married sister.
Frustrated with the cowboy-only dating scene in Grape Seed Falls and needing to find a beau fast, she joins an online dating website, TexasFaithful, hoping to find her soul mate without having to relocate–or deal with cowboy hats and boots. She has no idea that Kurt Pemberton, foreman at Grape Seed Ranch, is the man she starts communicating with.
Kurt can’t get off the ranch much, so TexasFaithful is ideal for him to meet potential women without wasting time. As he nears fifty, he finds his patience for finding the right woman waning, and the Christian dating website fixes all that.
When he learns May is the beautiful woman he’s been corresponding with, he couldn’t be happier. May, however, is scared off by the close proximity of Kurt, the big white cowboy hat, and the expectations of her family. If she’d known she was courting the cowboy all this time, she might not have done it. Will May be able to follow her heart so she can keep Kurt and her restaurant?
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About Liz Isaacson
Liz Isaacson is the pen name for Elana Johnson as she writes inspirational romances. She loves all things cowboys, and will write romance in Texas, Wyoming, and anywhere else she can find horses and mountains.
Spoilers ahead:
I enjoyed this story overall. I liked that the main characters are older and more established in life. I liked that May had to overcome her bias against cowboys as she had put all of them in a category that she viewed negatively. And I liked that Kurt was willing to change up his life to accommodate having a girlfriend with a busy schedule. What I didn’t like, is that May’s parents put a stipulation on the inheritance of the business requiring her to be married within a short period of time. Is a woman incapable of running a business without a man? And if it is really too much for one person to do on their own, (and it probably is) then couldn’t she have hired an accountant or an assistant manager or a new pastry chef? Couldn’t she have partnered with her brother-in-law who was second in line to inherit the business? Why must there be a husband? Don’t misunderstand me. I’m happily married and happy for anyone else who is as well. I just think it unfair for parents to put that requirement on her. (And did it bother none of the other siblings that one would get the inheritance and not in someway share it?)
Then there didn’t seem to be a way for May and Kurt to have a good future together. Their career goals seemed to head in opposite directions. Kurt tries to adapt but it doesn’t work out and they end up breaking up. In the end the happily ever after can only happen if she gives up her dream. She does so eventually but it bothered me that there couldn’t be some compromise so they could both have their dream happen. In this hea, she is the one that has to completely change her dream from career to husband. She gives up her private, beautiful house in the country to live in a small cabin surrounded by a bunch of other cabins full of single cowboys. (Remember she didn’t really like cowboys?) Will she stay content cooking for him in a little cabin on the ranch and being paid to feed the horses of which she is afraid? Or will she become resentful that she gave up everything for him? Couldn’t she continue her baking in some form even if she doesn’t own and run the restaurant? Perhaps she could start a catering business or get a business partner so the load is lighter. If one has to give up the career dream, why is it the woman? I would have liked to see the compromise…
This is Christian lit and though religion, church and prayer comes up frequently in the story it doesn’t overwhelm the story or feel inconsistent. Their prayers are a natural part of their characters.
Sex: some kissing, we find out Kurt’s first wife left him because she didn’t want to be intimate with men.
Language: none
Violence: Cowboy injured by a bull