The Cowboy She Loves to Hate

This was a little novella tacked onto the end of The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge…and I went ahead and considered it a separate book because it’s from a completely different series (and it allowed me to quickly finish a book to pad my numbers a tad, I’m shameless). There isn’t a shot in hell I would have read this otherwise. The entirety of this story exists primarily between two people. Nelly and Tag have been, apparently, dancing around each other for most of their lives but had somehow managed to avoid a romantic entanglement. Then one day Nelly gets brave with the assistance of liquid courage and decides to shed her 30-year-old-virgin skin by throwing herself at Tag. It worked, they did the horizontal mambo, then danced around admitting to be in love with each other. Spoiler alert: they are. End of story. I just got done writing another Maisey Yates review, so I almost feel like it’s overkill for me to write and post this one right away, but it’s fresh in my mind, so here we are. This story is an extreme example of rushing things, but that’s Yates’s style. Most of the time I can overlook it and enjoy it, but this one was particularly bad. Nelly’s portrayal as a dowdy booklover who preferred the company of the people on a page than in real life really rubbed me the wrong way. And then to have it feel like Tag was just doing her a favor, helping her get rid of the virgin stigma….that just made it worse. I had a hard time with this one…in case that’s not obvious. So while I usually at least pseudo-enjoy Yates, this one I did not. Just skip it.

I read this as a bonus story in The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge. The Cowboy She Loves to Hat is a short, but entertaining tale. The story introduces Taggert and Nelly who knew each other their whole lives. The two, however were never friends. They barely tolerated each other. This hostility started from their teen years and spilled over into adulthood. Nonetheless beneath the hostility laid an attraction, which they attempted to suppress. On her 21st birthday, while celebrating with friends, Taggert inserted himself in the middle of her celebration. His aim was to ruffle her feathers. However, in doing so he ended up offering to rock her world in the bedroom on any of her upcoming birthday celebrations. Nine years later she decided to cash in those chips. What followed was a night, which would change both their lives forever. Despite the brevity of the story, I found it to be an enjoyable read with interesting characters. Within that one night they learnt how much they had in common. Overall, a fun and cute story. It's perfect for those time when looking for a quick read.