Rebekah Weatherspoon

In this brand-new series from award-winning author Rebekah Weatherspoon, a charming cowboy and his sleeping beauty find their modern day happily ever after . . . With a headline spot on a hit morning show and truly mouth-watering culinary skills, chef Evie Buchanan is perched on the edge of stardom. But at an industry party, a fall lands Evie in the hospital--with no memory of who she is. Scrambling to help, Evie's assistant contacts the only "family" Evie has left, close friends who run the luxury dude ranch in California where Evie grew up. Evie has no recollection of them--until former rodeo champion Zach Pleasant walks into her hospital room, and she realizes his handsome face has been haunting her dreams . . . Zach hasn't seen Evie in years--not since their families conducted a campaign to make sure their childhood friendship never turned into anything more. When the young cowboy refused to admit the feelings between them were real, Evie left California, making it clear she never wanted to see Zach again. Now he refuses to make the same mistake twice. Starting fresh is a risk when they have a history she can't recall, but Zach can't bear to let go of her now. Can he awaken the sleeping beauty inside her who might still love him?

A Cowboy to Remember

menna

2.5 stars 

i only started to get invested towards the very end

Connor 

writing is good as always, but this one just wasn’t as much my jam (I think this is probably because my love for Rafe and Xeni is so unending). 3.5.

Lauren Sullivan

Content warnings: (view spoiler)[MC pushed down stairs (leading to head injury and memory loss), death of secondary character (before the book starts, but retold), toxic family relationship (secondary character) (hide spoiler)]

One of the squares on the JingleJangle bingo I'm doing was for a cowboy holiday romance. I'm not a big fan of cowboy romances, so with some trepidation, I picked up this one which, while it occurs over the holidays, isn't exactly a holiday romance in its truest sense. I'm also not a fan of amnesia romances, but I’d read and loved Rebekah Weatherspoon’s indie books before, and if anyone could pull off something with two of my least favorite romance tropes, it's her. And my fears were completely unjustified!

“You cried when I called you Buck. You’ve had more than one dream about me, but you didn’t recognize anyone else in the pictures I showed you. I think that only means one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I am a vital part of your recovery.”

Evie was amazing, even as an amnesiac person, and I loved all the characters at the ranch. Besides the aforementioned tropes, it's also a second chance romance. Zach and Evie were childhood friends, but Zach rebuffed her- quite cruelly - when Evie confessed her feelings to him after she returned to California for her grandmother's funeral (ouch, dude, ouch). Because of that, it took me a while to warm up to him, and I'm not sure he really had enough time to fully make up for his past actions and ten years of silence. The fact that their relationship is hampered by the fact that Evie's memory loss is so complete that she can't remember anything or anyone, and it's almost like he's falling in love with a completely different person. Even with the amnesia, I liked Evie much better than Zach, honestly.

One thing I appreciated seeing was how it touched on Black women being shortchanged on healthcare. One of the home health aides gets quite snippy with Miss Leona, Zach's grandma and the person Evie is staying with, over her traditionally Black food being too “heavy” for a recovering patient. As for cons, I found the plot line with figuring out who pushed Evie down the stairs to be distracting from the central romance. I'm not a fan of romances where there's POVs from characters who aren't in the relationship, and I groaned every time I got to one of those chapters in this book.

Overall, though, I did enjoy the book, and I'll definitely be picking up the second in the series!

An Oprah Magazine Best Romance Novel of 2020 In this brand-new series from award-winning author Rebekah Weatherspoon, a charming cowboy and his sleeping beauty find their modern-day happily ever after . . . With a headline spot on a hit morning show and truly mouth-watering culinary skills, chef Evie Buchanan is perched on the edge of stardom. But at an industry party, a fall lands Evie in the hospital—with no memory of who she is. Scrambling to help, Evie’s assistant contacts the only “family” Evie has left, close friends who run the luxury dude ranch in California where Evie grew up. Evie has no recollection of them—until former rodeo champion Zach Pleasant walks into her hospital room, and she realizes his handsome face has been haunting her dreams . . . Zach hasn’t seen Evie in years—not since their families conducted a campaign to make sure their childhood friendship never turned into anything more. When the young cowboy refused to admit the feelings between them were real, Evie left California, making it clear she never wanted to see Zach again. Now he refuses to make the same mistake twice. Starting fresh is a risk when they have a history she can’t recall, but Zach can’t bear to let go of her now. Can he awaken the sleeping beauty inside her who might still love him?

A Cowboy to Remember

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