Another fun, quick reading book from Delores Fossen. While it is part of a series you do not need to read the first to enjoy this one.

Chalk up another 5-star read from Delores Fossen! She certainly outdid herself in No Getting Over a Cowboy, the second novel in her Wrangler's Creek series. In most instances, I'm not a fan of an overly large cast of characters because they generally tend to muck up the plot and slow it down, but that's not the case in this novel at all, I'm happy to report.

The hero in this novel is Garrett Granger, who has one failed marriage behind him (his wife, Meredith, cheated on him), and one lost daughter whose loss he's been mourning for the past 3 years. He's back at the family ranch, attempting to grow the business by adding acreage, more cattle, and a large pond to the property, right next to an old house on the property that's been vacant for years. Imagine his surprise when, the day before the bulldozers arrive to start on the pond, he discovers that the old house is now peopled with a number of women he doesn't know and who are busy cleaning it, and an adorable 3-year-old girl is playing outside. There is one face among them that he does recognize--it's Nicky Marlowe, whom he deflowered in that same house when she was just 17 years old and then dumped one month later when he fell for his cheating, now ex-wife, Meredith.

Nicky's life has been anything but pleasant. Her father was an abusive alcoholic who regular beat Nicky, her mother and her brother, Kyle. Her mother didn't even try to protect her or her brother and Kyle fled the run-down old house and his abusive father as soon as he was able to, leaving Nicky there to take whatever abuse her father doled out--and it was plenty.

Eventually, Nicky married, and 18 months earlier, she lost her cheating husband to cancer. She decided that what was really needed was a Widow's House, a support group and a place for grieving women to reside and receive that support from other grieving women, as well as a non-resident therapist, whom we met in a previous novel. So Nicky rented what is known as Z.T.'s house from Belle Granger, Garrett's mother, and is moving in with her daughter, Kaylee, and a dozen widows. Oh, and just to make things more interesting and intriguing, it seems that Nicky is being stalked by someone who keeps sending her two yellow roses.

Garrett wants each and every one of them out of Z.T.'s so he can go ahead with his plan, presuming that the house belongs to him, but he soon learns that his mother had every right to rent it. He does get his wish (sort of) when a skeleton wearing Valentine boxer shorts is discovered in one of the rooms off of the kitchen, and the house becomes a crime scene. Since most of these women have nowhere else to go as the investigation proceeds, Belle offers to let them stay at the ranch until they can return to Z.T.'s house, and hold onto your hats, because once they move to the ranch, Ms. Fossen really outdoes herself a tour de force of plotting and writing.

I don't know anyone else who could take the aforementioned situation and switch it from a murder mystery, to a suspense novel, to a steamy second chance at love romance, to the zaniest cast of characters ever assembled between the covers of a book. This novel has it all, and it moved to me tears on one page and had me laughing like a loon at the hilarious dialogue and situations these characters end up in the next. It was, in many ways, like reading an I Love Lucy episode on steroids, and I loved each and every single second of it, from the adorable little Kaylee, to the pink Camel-Tow towing service vehicle owned by an incredibly horny, grieving widow who seems only to be grieving her sex life, to the 3 incredibly prudish sisters who all lost their husbands in the same boating accident, to the woman with Tourette's syndrome, whose outbursts are screamingly funny and always happen at the exact right moment. As crazy as it seems, this all works like a charm and made this novel an absolute joy to read. Delores Fossen, long may you write!

Oh, and by the way, the included bonus story is also excellent.

I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this novel and received no compensation for doing so. The opinions expressed are my own.

The defining word for this book is: chaos, but of the entertaining variety. Just like the first book in the series, this one starts out with drama from the very first page and there is no slowing down all the way to the end. If you enjoy that much crazy in your books, and by crazy I mean scheming ex-wives, police investigations, meddling family members, a nympho widow, etc., then read on. Personally, I just threw up my hands and hung on for the bumpy and enjoyable ride.

After the eventful past year where Garrett Granger, along with a sizable number of the population was treated to a video of his wife with her lover, the resulting media fallout and end of his marriage, all he wants is some peace and quiet to expand the ranch and deal with his feelings. He's not about to get his wish any time soon, between the random women popping in to offer him comfort of a sexual nature and the group of women who just set up on the ranch as a support group for widows, led by none other than his ex-girlfriend.

Nicky Marlow is trying to rebuild her life and the one place she hopes will help her and her fellow widows is the one place she always sought refuge in on the Granger ranch and she's not going down without a fight, especially as she has given up everything for this new start and she has the other women counting on her to make this work.

Well, day 1 isn't so wonderful for everyone with the discovery of a body on the ranch and the need to re-settle the women in the main ranch house, leaving poor Garrett to hide out in the guest house, but he can't hide from Nicky and her daughter, especially when it's clear that his mother is trying her hand at matchmaking between them and her little girl is a constant reminder of his own loss.

Nicky has her own secrets that she wants to keep that way, but coming back to Wrangler's Creek is testing her resolve in a big way and reviving her feelings for Garrett which she thought she had gotten over. The only chance she and Garrett have depends on both of them coming clean about their secrets, but it's a daunting task to undertake. With everyone rooting for them and interfering to help things along, there is only one end for them: happy ever after, but getting there is going to be an eventful ride.

These characters were over the top and mostly hilarious and I really enjoyed this book. With a story set in a small town, I was expecting any and everything and I wasn't disappointed. This is definitely one book to read if you enjoy small towns and their drama. I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the series!

Really enjoyed this book about Garrett and Nicky. LOL moments and sexy moments and WTF moments prevail in this second chance romance.

No Getting Over a Cowboy was more of an experience to me than reading a book. I was right there in the middle of the story, observing, feeling and sharing the events that had me smiling, laughing, and even broke my heart a bit. The characters felt like my friends that I was visiting, and I was sad to leave them behind.
The whole story is written with such vivid images and invites the reader into the world created by the author, a world of friends, lovers, family, life, love, and heartbreak. But most of all it is a world where you can face your inner demons and troubles, learn from the past experiences, and grow as a human being, to reach your potential.
I loved the characters, the whole ensemble of the people from the ranch hands to the widows, the family and friends and town folks. They each have an important role in the development of the story and they carried that responsibility well.
Garrett Granger as a hero was drool worthy for sure, handsome, sexy, kind, considerate good guy, who means well even when occasionally stepping on toes of others. He is a complex character who had conquered his past the best he could, he wasn't afraid to show emotions, as clumsy as some of the attempts were. I adored him, simply said. And Nicky Marlow was definitely his soul mate.
Nicky had endured so much in her childhood, the memories still haunting her day and night. Her ability to face them step by step and scream on the face of the demons hunting her had me in tears. There's a brilliant metaphorical scene where she and Garrett get the ultimate reward from their battles with the past, where the frame of their pain crumbles down and give them freedom from the pain.
This series is getting just better with each unique installment. There are danger and threats, loving and lies, betrayal and secrets, the whole tale resembling life in its caricature way of exaggerated personalities and life events they face. I adored every moment I got to spent with them in that chaotic way of life at the Wrangler's Creek, Texas. I'm looking forward to the next opportunity for a visit!
~ Five Spoons!

No Getting Over a Cowboy is the second on the Wrangler's Creek series. It definitely works as a stand alone though. While I enjoyed the first book, I can say that I liked this one a lot more. This one involves Garrett and Nicky, an old flame from high school. Throw in a dead body and a house full of widows and you have one funny and wild ride.

I definitely bought into this romance a lot more than the first book. Nicky and Garrett have a short history, so the attraction and HEA was more believable. Both of them have baggage that they are dealing and they are able to find some healing in each other. I loved Kaylee and Garrett's interactions with her. It was wonderful to see a little girl help to heal "Gar-iff's" broken heart. I also loved her "Who am I?" game. It was adorable.

There are a lot of secrets and reveals packed into this story. The book is filled with lively and quirky characters. Although, some were a bit over the top...*cough* Lady *cough*. It made for a fun read and provided some great laugh out loud moments. I highly recommend this one and look forward to "Roaming's", I mean Roman's, story next. -Kari

The Granger Ranch doesn’t just keep cattle. They seem to have plenty of pasturage for an entire herd of drama llamas. Maybe two herds.

Just like the first book in the Wrangler’s Creek series, Those Texas Nights, this one is off to the races from the very first page, and doesn’t let up until the very last sentence. And even then, only sort of lets up, because I fully expect the entire series to be just this kind of crazy.

If you like your romances beginning in chaos, middling in chaos, and ending in chaos, this is a great series.

But about all that insanity, and some of it is, it makes for a very wild ride that occasionally feels like it is going to throw the reader completely off the track. Instead, it’s more like a roller coaster, where just as you pass the crest of the big hill and think you’re going to fly out of your seat, the seat belt (and gravity) pull you back firmly into the ride.

Our story begins with Garrett Granger expecting to add pasturage near his great-grandfather Z.T.’s eyesore of a tumbledown Victorian monstrosity in the middle of Granger Ranch. But instead of seeing a vacant and decaying house, he discovers that the long-abandoned homestead is a beehive of activity.

His mother, Belle, about whom more later, has leased the house to a widow’s support group for an entire year, to serve as a retreat and healing center. Belle just never bothered to tell him, and doesn’t seem to give a damn about the ranch plans that Garrett not only had, but had informed her of. And this is unfortunately typical behavior for Belle.

As soon as Garrett meets the organizer of the “Widow’s House” he figures out exactly what his mother has in mind. That organizer is Nicky Marlow, and Garrett remembers all too clearly the night that Nicky gave him her virginity at that very same house, back when they were both in high school.

It may have been half a lifetime ago, but it seems that neither of them has ever forgotten. And his mother is matchmaking again.

But it was a lifetime ago. Garrett broke up with Nicky, fell in love with another girl (unfortunately not in that order) and eventually married that other girl. He and Meredith had a daughter who was stillborn, and eventually divorced. After Meredith got caught in a YouTube video giving some anonymous cowboy a blowjob.

A cowboy who turns out to have been Nicky’s older brother.

There’s plenty of fodder for those drama llamas just between Nicky and Garrett, without factoring in the other 15 widows and Nicky’s little daughter Kaylee – along with Garrett’s heartbreak at seeing a little girl who is just the age that his daughter would have been.

The discovery of a dead body in the pantry of the old house brings the police onto the scene, along with a whole lot more craziness. And in the middle of all of this, Garrett and Nicky discover that half a lifetime isn’t nearly enough to douse the fire they still raise in each other – even if they have a hell of a time finding a moment or two for each other in the midst of the insanity that surrounds them.

Escape Rating B+: This one went way, way over the top, but in a fun way. There are a couple of points where it seems like the long arm of coincidence is just a bit too long, but then it passes that point and the reader is just along for the ride.

There does not seem to be a single person in this story who isn’t in the middle of some kind of crazy. With the exception of Nicky and Garrett, it’s all in fun, from the three widowed sisters who all have variations of penis-phobia to the tow truck owner with execrable taste in advertising signs who is assuaging her grief with the entire male population of Wranglers Creek and everyone in between. In spite of the tragedies that made all of these women candidates for the Widow’s House, they are a fun and funny bunch, even if often unintentionally. The penis-phobic sisters are a laugh riot all by themselves, albeit usually at their own expense.

The heart of the story is Nicky and Garrett, along with little Kaylee and the machinations of Garrett’s ex-wife Meredith. That Meredith wants him back isn’t much of a surprise. That she thinks she has a chance of getting him back requires an extreme amount of either self-confidence or self-absorption. Having seen Meredith in action, it’s a bit of both.

But what keeps Nicky and Garrett apart is not Meredith’s shenanigans, not that she doesn’t try. Instead, it’s their shared past, and how it affects their present. Not just that long-ago tryst, or even that Garrett broke Nicky’s heart afterwards. Both of them carry a lot of baggage from those years in-between. Most of Garrett’s baggage is out in the open – it seems like everyone saw that video. But Nicky’s is hidden. Not just her horrific childhood in Wranglers Creek, but also her disastrous marriage and its one bright result, little Kaylee.

That there is a secret about Kaylee seems obvious fairly early on. But the nature of that secret is a complete surprise, and not one the reader expects. Also not one that is stock and trope, but still has all kinds of potential negative consequences. That this particular plot thread defied all of my expectations was very well done.

But as much as I liked Nicky, Garrett and Kaylee, I really, really, really don’t like Belle. I didn’t like her in Those Texas Nights, and I don’t like her any better here. I could go a long time without reading another book about adult children who have a certifiably crazy mother. Luckily she is not as big a part of this book as she was the first one, because she doesn’t seem to approve of the way that any of her children have turned out, even though they are all quite functional and successful adults. She acts so far out-there that her children have to continually placate her in ways that drove this reader crazier than Belle. And I’m continually astonished that someone in town, if not her children, doesn’t tell her where to get off and what she can do when she gets there.

Partially because there is more Belle in Those Texas Nights, and partially because the events in the first story that are really important for the second are recapped within the context of this story, it’s not absolutely necessary to read that first book in this series before the second. But it was a lot of fun if you can either ignore Belle or if her “type” doesn’t bother you as much as it does me.

I digress.

But as much as I don’t like their mother, I do like the Granger siblings very much. The chaotic nature of their journeys to their respective happy ever afters is a hoot from beginning to end. I’m very much looking forward to bad-boy Roman finding his own good-bad girl in Branded as Trouble, coming just in time for a sizzling Summer read.

Favorite Quotes:

‘Panties in a Bunch ‘Cause Your Car Won’t Start? Use Camel-Tow!’ That’s what was printed on the magnetic sign on the door of the tow truck.

‘I used to diaper both of you boys.’ Garrett hoped like the devil that she didn’t want to do a boxers check to see if she recognized his equipment.

Roman had had a bad attitude since birth. According to their mother, when he’d come out breech, he’d immediately kicked the doctor in the balls.

Your aunt had h-o-t p-a-n-t-s, and I don’t think Loretta meant they were really short shorts.

There’s a really hot cowboy unclogging a toilet... Never thought of that as hot, but he managed to make it look spellbinding. He’s got an audience, too. I think a couple of the women are hoping for a butt-crack showing.


My Review:

I know I am late in my discovery of her talent, but No Getting Over A Cowboy was my fourth of many more to come Delores Fossen reads. I adored the amusing visuals her clever words generated in my skull. I always enjoy her humorous and witty observations and descriptions, odd characters, and intriguing storylines. Her stories are typically active and eventful with several subplots containing long-buried secrets, humor, intriguing mysteries, adult romance, cute kids, endearingly flawed protagonists, quirky characters with mysterious agendas, and unpredictable and highly satisfying conclusions. I barked aloud several times and frequently wore a smirk on my face as I read this delightfully busy second chance romance with the most eccentric collection of widows the south has ever produced, and that is saying something.

Garrett Granger is still full of both rage over the end of his marriage and grief over the loss of his child. Enter Nicky Marlow an old flame who is about to shake up his world. Nicky has secrets of her own and they add to the tension in the story. The attraction between the two drive the story and Nicky's daughter often steals the show. There are also some very interesting side characters who add more spice to the story. This is another fun contemporary western romance with all the Fossen trademarks. In addition she shines the spot light on some series issues that women often face.

The book started with a crude joke that really wasn't funny. It got better but really wasn't very good. I didn't much care for the characters. I can't recommend.

This storyline is pretty average... two people come together despite past experiences. Unfortunately, the author did not weave the story in such a way that I felt any empathy for either of the two main characters. Author could have written this as a novella and been perhaps a better book.

This is my first time reading this author and while I enjoyed the authors writing, I did not like the main character, Garrett and it really kept me from enjoying the story. Nicky, I LOVED. She is a single mom whose husband died two years ago and she has a young adorable child.

The story begins when Garrett goes to a property his brother owns or so he thinks and he wants to live and ranch there. Its an unused property and so when he arrives ahead of the workmen, he meets Nicky, her childand a bunch of widow women.

Nicky is a lawyer and she has rented the house as a retreat for widowed women to escape to. She is an admirable character and she has had a very hard life but she is also very strong and I totally LOVED her. Which is also why I HATED Garrett and why there love story just did not work for me. A guy who did what he did to her, I could never in a million years look past even if it happened 17 years before. So it was hard to enjoy this book because he kinda turned my stomache.

What did Garrett do? He had sex and took Nicky's virginity, and a few weeks later he breaks it off because he falls in love with this other woman who he ends up marrying and who loses his child and leaves him. I know the whole loses his child and her and all was supposed to make me think he payed for how horrible he was to Nicky. But I am sorry, it still totally grossed me out and the whole time I kept thinking he picked this other woman over Nicky, I would have HATED his guts til the end of time. Its a very hard thing in a romance novel to get over, no matter how many years go by, picking another woman over the woman you are currently involved with and then coming back years later after she did you wrong.

Anyways the story gets going when they discover a dead body in the house Nicky rented and so they all end up staying together at Garrett's brother's house where his mom is also staying, plus a bunch more widows. Garrett is supposed to be this very grumpy guy and as I said I hated him.

This book was well written and most of the characters I enjoyed but I could not enjoy the romance aspect of this story.