Maisey Yates wrote a nice Christmas story about love lost and then found again.

I’ve read Maisey Yates before and always enjoyed her stories. Liam just couldn’t let go of his past hurts and decisions. Sabrina just couldn’t let go of the past. But, they have a job to do and they both decide to make the best of it. Liam knew that he would not be welcomed with open arms and Sabrina made sure that she made his life as miserable as possible. But, then she sees the softer side of him and faces the fact that she still loves him. Deciding to make the best out of a terrible situation, she gives in and gives Liam the surprise of his life. But, will she regret it? Will Liam finally tell her the whole truth and leave the past behind him? Can they make a life together after all the hurt and deception?

Liam and Sabrina, unfortunately, didn’t drag me into this story. I honestly didn’t feel the sparks between them and really wanted to. Liam came off as hard and Sabrina had a real chip on her shoulder. Between the two of them, there was a whole lot of angst. But, in the end, they showed their inner selves and my heart opened to them. But, getting there was a little rough. To me, a Holiday Romance should be light and sweet, fun. There were parts of the story that were that but there was a whole lot of drama as well.

It was thirteen years ago when Sabrina had her romantic summer romance with Liam Donnelly. It was a summer to remember and a summer to forget as well. Because one day Liam was gone, just left and broke her heart.

Sabrina's Dad didn't want Liam around his daughter so he offered him money to leave, disappear, money to pay his college. Liam felt that he wasn't good enough for Sabrina so he took the money, he was going to college and better himself.

Thirteen years pass and Liam is back. Successful and well off, he's done what he set out to do, but he still felt that something was missing. But now he's back, he's determined to reconnect with his brothers and work on establishing a friendship with them.

Well Sabrina and Liam's path's cross of course. And Sabrina's hurt and anger are palpable when they do, Liam has do doubt she hates him. Things become even more tense when their families will now be working together and hence they will also.

The two has so much unresolved anger, hurt and issues to address that it was an emotional merry go round. The past needed to be addressed and truths revealed. I appreciated their communication skills and process of coming to their HEA. Good pacing and storyline. I enjoyed the characters as well as the secondary characters. I love Maisey Yates small town romances.

Absolutely love Maisey Yates and this is another winner. I couldn't set it down and read it through in one sitting. I love all the Donnellys but was very excited to read Liam and Sabrina's story. The author had set it up in the other books but gave us all the backstory and details. This is one of my favorites and I often recommend these books for those people looking for a fun sweet modern romance author, especially for those that like series about family members.

Review: Christmastime Cowboy was my first time to Copper Ridge but it won’t be my last. I have a lot of catching up to do since this is the tenth book in the Copper Ridge series but my visit there. There was a novella included at the end of the book to introduce us to Gold Valley which abuts Copper Ridge. Cowboy Christmas Blues didn’t disappoint either. There was also an excerpt for Smooth-Talking Cowboy, book one in the Gold Valley series and it just whet my appetite for more.

This is Sabrina and Liam’s story and it began in their childhood but ended thirteen years before when Liam left town unexpectedly. Not having contact throughout the years didn’t mean they hadn’t thought of each other or had they? Now that Liam has returned to work with his siblings on the family ranch and their Laughing Irish cheese he and Sabrina will be in contact because of the new tasting room in town which focuses on Grassroots Wine where Sabrina works with her sister in law who now owns it and the Donnelly brother’s cheese. They both have a lot of walls built up and it was fun to watch them get knocked down but it was sometimes heartbreaking too since neither has come to grips with their past. There’s a lot of reminisces, histories shared, sadness, anger, fear, miscommunication, tears, romance, loving and love. Their miscommunication and misreading the other’s thoughts almost put them back at square one more than once.

There were family and friends along with their shared histories that kept that story moving. It flowed nicely once I got through the first couple of chapters. The descriptions of the town, the business and the mountains made me feel like I was there. I loved the town’s Christmas traditions and how all the small businesses pulled together. There was nice closure especially with the epilogue and a happily ever after too. There’s more stories to tell which is why the new series will be set in Gold Valley.

Cowboy Christmas Blues welcomes us officially to Gold Valley and is Cooper and Annabelle’s story. They have a shared childhood since their dads are friends and they grew up around each other and their siblings. Tragedy struck Cooper’s family six years before and he was never the same. He only returns to Gold Valley when his parents ask him too. Annabelle always had a crush on Cooper but they had a big age gap – at least when they were younger. Not so much now but can they be more than friends with benefits since Cooper doesn’t plan to stay around for long and Annabelle is a business owner in town. Are they doomed to be apart or can they work through their differences?

There was a lot packed into this ninety-three page novella and had a nice flow to it. There was closure with the epilogue and a happily ever after too. I can’t wait to be back in Gold Valley over and over again.

A truly wonderful addition to a wonderful series by an author who never fails to send me away to a place I would love to live with people I'd love to know. Sigh worthy.

Sabrina Leighton and Liam Donnelly have history together — and it’s not a happy one. Thirteen years earlier, when she was seventeen and he was twenty, their fledgling romance was abruptly put to a stop when her father paid Liam to go away to college, but only if he left Sabrina’s life for good. He took her controlling father up on his offer, disappearing from her life and their small town in Oregon, only returning after he’d inherited a portion of his grandfather’s ranch alongside his three brothers. While he was still gorgeous, with that mysterious tattooed bad boy vibe about him that women flocked toward, Sabrina wasn’t the vulnerable, innocent, loyal-to-her-family girl that she once was–and Liam is disappointed that she actively avoids him when they cross paths in town.

But that’s about to change when his family cheese business joins forces with her current job working for her sister-in-law at the winery that her parents used to own, it’s a test of her patience as well as a battle of wills to see who will break first as they work together to open up a new wine and cheese tasting room in a nearby town. They try to be professional, but strong attraction and past hurts bubble to the surface fast as Liam tries to take the lead of this business venture, and Sabrina has to reluctantly agree that the ideas that he brings to the table are actually good. Can Sabrina and Liam pull together a successful store with a short deadline of right before Christmas, or will their checkered past set them up for failure before they can even begin?

Liam thought that he was doing the right thing for Sabrina by taking her father’s money and walking away. He didn’t have the best childhood, and he certainly wasn’t good enough for her. Determined to overcome that rotten upbringing, he went to college and became a successful businessman in his own right, earning a small fortune helping startups get going. But no matter how much success he achieved, no matter how much money he accumulated, no matter how many women came through his life, there was still an empty hole deep inside him. When his grandfather passed away, Liam realized that he had the opportunity to return home and start a new career–one that would hopefully be more fulfilling. He never forgot that sweet, beautiful girl Sabrina or how he felt about her, especially since she was tattooed all over his back.

Sabrina’s well-manicured, completely-planned-out life imploded when Liam dumped her and disappeared from her world. After a big, public blow up with her father, he practically kicked her out of the family, and she had to make her own way in the world. She’s very guarded with her heart, and while she’s tried dating men throughout the years, no one compares to the idea of Liam Donnelly. She blames him for how her life turned out, and she’s a bit embarrassed that she hasn’t moved on. But she can’t deny that they still have chemistry after all these years, and even though she shouldn’t, she can’t help but hope for more than a brief fling with Liam.

I give Christmastime Cowboy a 4.5 out of 5. Ultimately a story of love lost and found again, both Liam and Sabrina have a lot of issues to work out before they can work together–both professionally, personally, and romantically. Liam’s childhood was quite tragic, and while Sabrina’s was privileged, she was neglected in other ways. Even though this is book ten in the Copper Ridge series, I had no difficulties following along with the sprinklings of backstory throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed my first Maisey Yates book, and her writing has picturesque scenery, realistic dialogue, quite steamy scenes, and great secondary characters that are charming and unique. The novel did bog down a little bit at times, but those spots were very few and far between. Overall, Christmastime Cowboy was a great read of lovers finding each other again after years apart while discovering who they really are, all with a lovely small country town Christmas backdrop.

I'm a fan of second chance romances and second chances are at the heart of Liam and Sabrina's story. Their first chance - when Sabrina was 17 and Liam was 20 - never really got off the ground. Given time, it may have but they were both young and both dealing with family issues that impacted their decisions, even if they weren't fully aware of it at the time. Liam, in particular, had a difficult past that was at the heart of the way he viewed himself, relationships, and the people he never let get close. And, when he left abruptly, the emotional wounds Sabrina suffered followed her for the next thirteen years...until Liam returned to Copper Ridge and they were forced to confront all they had been...and hadn't been...and could possibly be.

This is not a fast-paced book, especially in the first half. The pace picks up in the second half but, still, it's not a quick read. There's a lot of emotion at play with individual, familial, and romantic issues to be sorted through and the author takes her time in doing so. Liam is not especially likeable (at least, not to me) in the beginning and I found Sabrina's thirteen-year grudge a bit annoying but as their stories began to unfold, I found myself warming up to both of them. Liam's story, in particular, broke my heart and had me pulling for a happy ending for him. I also enjoyed watching Sabrina come into her own. Their actions felt authentic along with their emotions and their sizzling desire and by the end, I happily embraced their HEA. Other characters help move things along, adding dimension to the story without turning the focus away from the main couple.

All in all, Christmastime Cowboy was a satisfying story that has me eager to read the other Donnelly Brothers books and looking forward to the author's new Gold Valley series. Launching that series on February 20, 2018 will be Smooth-Talking Cowboy, featuring a key secondary character from Christmastime Cowboy. I've already added it to my book calendar.

I enjoyed this story. It was a good wrap up to one section of Maisey Yates series and a good connector to the next portion of the series.

Another great read from this series. (Plus, a teaser excerpt at the end for book one in a spin-off series, and a bonus novella that is a prequel! It's like getting a surprise Christmas present from Maisey Yates!)

Christmastime Cowboy is a second-chance romance/enemies-to-lovers hybrid. Practically my catnip! Liam and Sabrina were close in high school--friends, and she hoped, something more--until he rejected her (crushingly, though at least in private) and left for parts unknown, never to return...until he does. And of course they need to work together on a project for their respective workplaces--so you know where that is going, right?

Liam and Sabrina had a lot of issues to work out--within themselves, with their families, and in their relationship. Though it felt like slow going at times (is there anything worse than those relationship-with-an-expiration-date plots? So. Much. Angst) they both eventually got to somewhere at least close to where they needed to be in what felt like a realistic way. I loved seeing Liam's interactions with his family (Must. Read. Books 1 & 2, dang it. ASAP) and seeing Clara again, this time as Sabrina's friend and coworker. Grassroots Winery (Sabrina's workplace) is also providing a springboard to the next series, since Olivia lives in Gold Valley. Can't wait for book one!

(Though, okay...waiting will give me time to get to Finn and Cain's books, at least. I'll get right on that!)

Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A-

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

Sabrina fell hard for Liam when she was just seventeen. They formed a friendship while he was working at her family’s winery, and she never felt closer to anyone. Confiding her hopes and dreams all the while her crush grew and burned a permanent mark on her heart. Unfortunately, when Sabrina offered herself up to Liam, he rejected and humiliated her. Worse, he accepted her father’s payoff to stay away and she hasn’t laid eyes on him in thirteen years. That is until he shows up back in town and they must work together setting up the new winery tasting room. Let’s just say things are a little chilly going forward.

The intensity of feelings Sabrina felt for Liam has been unmatched by any other man in the years that’ve passed, but there’s anger and hurt there, too. There is a reason, or many, why Liam left when he did. I won’t go into it, but it made sense, and once Sabrina got the whole story, understanding started to replace the anger she felt.

I just loved this second-chance romance so much! Yes, there was hurt and anger, but that’s because the feelings between Liam and Sabrina were intense and passionate. It was pleasure seeing Liam and Sabrina fall all over again! The setting, a small picturesque town lit up by Christmas lights, dusted with snow felt perfect for this time of year!

I’m a huge fan of Maisey Yates’ Copper Ridge series, and I’ve eagerly awaited the 10th, stand-alone book, Christmastime Cowboy, especially after becoming acquainted with the heroine and hero, Sabrina Leighton and Liam Donnelly, through the previous books. Sabrina fell for Liam, the local bad boy, when she was a teenager, and he broke her heart when he accepted money from her father as a bribe to leave their small town. Her heart was broken, especially without an explanation or goodbye from Liam, and she hasn’t seen or heard from him in 13 years. When he suddenly moves back and they begin working together, the sparks fly as they reestablish their connection under the shadow of their complicated past. Sabrina is torn between her intense attraction to Liam and her anger at him, and although he holds his emotions close to his chest, it’s obvious that he feels deeply for Sabrina and always has. Their second chance at love is a bittersweet journey as they quietly and carefully expose their hearts, and Christmastime Cowboy is heartfelt and romantic with dashes of smoldering heat and Yuletide cheer.

You have to read this series, It is the best. This title is also the last one in the series. There is a spin-off series coming up that i am sure is going to be just as good. Liam and Alex are the only 2 brothers bought up together. but Liam left as soon as he was able. He endured way more that Alex is aware. .Liam has no interest in finding love. He does not believe her deserves happy ever after. Sabrina has love Liam since she was 17 years old but her broke her hear and she doesn't want to trust him. But there is Christmas magic. Read it and find out what happens you will be glad you did.

Thank you Netgalley and Harlequin for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

After reading Wild Ride Cowboy (book 9), I knew I needed to read Christmastime Cowboy! I knew that I needed more Donnelly! And boy, did I get a humdinger of a book with Christmastime Cowboy!!

We start out by reconnecting with Alex Donnelly, the bad boy of Copper Ridge, who broke Sabrina Leighton heart, when he took the bribe from her father, to get out of town! But now he is back, a self-made man, who wants to be a part of his family's life, even if that means dealing with the one person who hates him in all the world… Sabrina Leighton.

The last thing Sabrina need's in her life is Alex Donnelly, but the one thing she wants in her life, even if she won't admit it to herself, is Alex Donnelly! But he is back, and after an explosive arguments full of truths! Both Alex and Sabrina force themselves to face demons of the past, in order to be more.

This book blew my mind! I honestly didn’t think I could have been on a bigger emotional roller-coaster, since I read Wild Ride Cowboy, but clearly I was wrong, and please don't let the fact that this book is a romance, there are some hardcore and heartbreaking issues in this book, so if you are looking for a light and fluffy book, this isn’t for you, but if you are looking for a book that will steal your heart? WELCOME! It's truly wonderful here!

When it comes to the character, I loved Alex from the get go, with all his gruffness and sincerity. I will admit, it took me a little longer to warm up to Sabrina, because she seemed a snooty, but that quickly changes, and quite frankly, I became so lost in this book, they all became my close friends… sad, but true.

So while I could go on about this book for hours, and give away all its secrets, I am going to give you the key info. The writing is superb, and as you can tell from my ramblings above, the plot is one you can truly immerse yourself in, and this is why I give Christmastime Cowboy 5 stars!

Truth be told, Miss Bates would advise you not to read past this sentence because she loves every Maisey Yates romance she reads. You’ve been warned: you may have heard this before.

With each Copper Ridge and related romance novels that come out, MissB. anticipates disappointment: “finally, this one will be stale, tired, Yates will just go through the motions”. Nope, each and every one is good: thoughtful, sexy, centred on love, romance, healing, fidelity, and commitment. Hero and heroine are often many kinds of messed up, in need of healing what is soul-and-heart broken. They skirt around what their fabulous love-making intimates, dismiss it as lust, run away from what their bodies already know: this is your soulmate, the one person you’ve waited for, the one who ends all others for you, the one you love and will share a family with. It’s simple and familiar and Yates makes it fresh and wonderful every time. You either buy her view of love and marriage, or you balk at the notion of what the body knows, the mind must get used to; and, what the body knows, the soul recognized a long time ago. This is as true for Golden-Good-Girl Sabrina Leighton as for returned bad-boy, wrong-side-of-tracks Liam Donnelly.

When Sabrina was seventeen and Liam twenty, he worked at her father’s winery. Sabrina had a crush on him and Liam was, um, not inured to her beauty: what they had was friendship, attraction, affection, care, and a whole load of yearning, especially on Sabrina’s part. But Liam left, after her father paid him off, breaking Sabrina’s heart (though he saw his actions as nobly giving her up “for her own good” because he wasn’t good enough for her) leaving thirteen years of resentment and anger in his wake. Now, he’s back and their mutual business interests see them working together to open a wine-tasting venue.

Sabrina and Liam work together through Sabrina’s anger and Liam’s seeming charming indifference. They work through the flaring of their always-smouldering attraction. They work through dredging up past hurts. They work through their unfinished story. They work through islands of affection and connection which float into their fraught encounters. All around them are the wonderful characters and world that Yates built for her fictional Copper Ridge, Oregon (even a delightful sighting of Sheriff Eli Garrett, one of Copper Ridge’s first heroes). Liam and Sabrina’s reunited-almost-lovers banter and angry, resistant kisses occur amidst Thanksgiving turkey and pie, the town decked out in Christmas lights, the mayoral Christmas tree lighting, and the grand opening of their wine-tasting venue. They banter, kiss, argue, fight, laugh, smile, and confront what their bodies and souls have known all along: they love each other. Their journey is long, sexy, and angsty enough to make the moments of joy and humour all that sharper and better.

One of Yates’s favourite themes, which is close to Miss Bates’s heart, is that money doesn’t bring you closer to the ultimate human goods, love and family. Maybe it’s clichéd and/or trite, the stuff of Hallmark movies, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Yates, however, understands that Mammon’s pursuit is borne of inner “broken-ness”, especially for men. Liam is such a hero: an abused, neglected child, with internalized anger and feelings of worthlessness. He took Sabrina’s father’s money and went to college, made a huge success of himself, filled his coffers, bought a NYC penthouse, and wore Italian-made suits. He also found himself staring glumly out of the corner office, feeling empty. He returned to Copper Ridge and moved in with his brothers, whom he loves but keeps at a distance. Even now, working the ranch with them, Liam defines himself by what he believes is his only offering – money: “He didn’t have much to offer. He had capital. Which, when you were kind of an asshole, was always the smart thing to lead with … He knew … how to make money. And he knew how to give money.” Confronted by his brothers’ love and Sabrina’s, Liam cracks open: exposing fears of abandonment and not measuring up. For many of Yates’s heroes, love forces their seemingly indifferent, generous hand and brings out their little-boy need for love, care, connection, and affection. Like most of them, the faster and harder they run away from love in a beloved woman’s form (and family as a secondary story), paradoxically, the closer they come to becoming the men they’re meant to be: loving, faithful husbands and fathers. Liam is a wonderful example of this character growth.

Another of Yates’s favourite themes, and which Miss Bates also holds close to her heart, is the recognition of the beloved as preceding conscious thought. Liam and Sabrina, for example, had recognized each other when they were young and now, despite the hurt and separation, they recognize each other all over again thirteen years later: “The moment she had walked in he had looked, and she had found him. As if there was no space between them at all. As if there weren’t thirteen years between them. Thirteen years and some hard decisions and some hurt.” Those “hard decisions” and “hurt” have to be worked through and it’s painful, but body and soul know what the mind must reason through, with honest conversation between hero and heroine, often painful, wrenching, hurtful, but also clarifying, reconciling, and ultimately healing.

One of Miss Bates’s favourite moments in Christmastime Cowboy is when Sabrina works out and works through, in her head, how she used Liam’s actions to block herself from feeling and growing:

… until that moment she hadn’t realized that to her he hadn’t been real. He had been a symbol. A symbol of rebellion gone wrong, of her feelings, of her vulnerabilities. But perhaps, just perhaps, he was more than that. Faced with this, it was somewhat impossible to deny … on some level she felt as though her body had been created for this. Created for him. And his for her.

It’s an interesting and unusual idea that Yates posits here: that the hero can be as subject to objectification as the heroine. Liam became Sabrina’s scapegoat: she could attribute to him what she couldn’t admit to herself. When she recognizes that he too was vulnerable (and it takes some honesty on his part to help her come to this conclusion), he becomes more than a romance cliché: the bad boy, no matter how handsome, desirable, and dangerous, emerges into flawed, but loving and worthy of love three-dimensional person. And it is double interesting that the body knows and recognizes, through the rightness of fidelity, that she and Liam belong together on a plane that goes beyond the limitations of what they can rationalize.

Finally, Yates gives Liam one of the most beautiful Christmas romance confessions of love Miss Bates has read:

“You’re my Christmas, Sabrina.”

“Your what?”

“My peace on earth. My hope. My joy. My love.”

As sigh-worthy a romance novel conclusion as any Miss B. and many readers have ever read. With Miss Austen, her reading companion, Miss Bates says of Yates’s Christmastime Cowboy, “there is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” Emma.

Maisey Yates’s Christmastime Cowboy is published by HQN Books. It was released on October 24th and is available through your preferred vendors. Miss Bates received an e-ARC from HQN Books, via Netgalley.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF book for me. I just couldn't get into it. The characters were kind of boring; There was a lot of repetition.

I had a weird experience reading Christmastime Cowboy. It took me forever to get into this book. I would start it, read a chapter, and then stop. Start, read a chapter, stop. This happened for the first 10 chapters. I was getting frustrated because this is the type of book I normally devour. Small town second chance romance between two very wounded characters... Where do I sign? So for it to fight me like this was disconcerting.

However, once I got past the roadblock... I was hooked. Here's my theory... I try not to start a book that is this late in the series and subconsciously I knew this. So I think the fact that I'm obviously jumping into a series where everyone has history, one that readers should be familiar with by now, I felt like I was missing puzzle pieces to the story. Once I got the gist of it and was able to settle into the story, I was all in. As the saying goes... The problem is me, not the book.

Once I fell in love with the book, I could not put it down. When I was supposed to be doing other things around the house, I kept finding time to sneak away for another chapter. So this time it was start, read a chapter, do something useful, then sneak back for another chapter. *grins* There was a lot I enjoyed with Christmastime Cowboy. The characters were beautifully flawed and wounded. Liam and Sabrina forced each other to face their pasts. To move forward, they had to open old wounds for the healing to begin. The banter between them added lighthearted moments and had me smiling. There were moments when I wanted to hug them and moments when I could have smacked a little bit of sense into both. I am so glad I didn't throw in the towel when things got tough. By the end of Christmastime Cowboy, I was in small town holiday romance heaven.

Will I go back and start this series from the beginning? I wish I could, but I might go back to read the Donnelly brothers books. Will I start reading the spin-off series next year? Heck yeah.

This story has a twist to it which is breaking your heart while reading it. Liam is struggling with his decision that made him take the money, leave Copper Ridge and Sabrina behind. He's convinced that that was the right call but when he returns to his home town and sees her again he's conscious isn't so convinced.

Sabrina has shelled her heart when Liam left her without so much as an afterthought. She convinces herself that she can be a professional and work side by side with Liam and not get hurt again. But spending time together can't change the fact they she once loved him and she still does.

This second chance story had me almost putting the book down, but then the more they reveal to one another, the more it pulls you in until you're crying like a little baby at the end.

" I want you." he said, his voice hard. "And I don't care about moments. How many damn moments have passed, Sabrina? Since I've known you, too many damned moments have passed. We let them pass. I'm done with it." " You're the one who let it pass the first time", she said. "That's true. I did. And I regretted it, a lot more often than I care to admit. Damn, did I regret it. I'm not gonna let it happen again."

*** Review copy requested and received on behalf of OMGReads Blog***

I like a good angst in my romances but it has to be well written with likable characters and a believable romance. In this case, the angst was ongoing to the point that it became a tad irritating and the "romance" seemed lacking as it focused more on lust then love. This is a mistake that many authors do lately which is to forget that a good romance needs to "build" the couple slowly in which we the reader, can get to know them by seeing them work out their issues, bond and fall in love. When you have a couple spend so much time fighting each other & their feelings and only having sex, then a paragraph at the end with some ILY's is just not believable or enjoyable to a reader.

The last Donnelly just may be down for the count! Liam has always been the hardest to read and the most standoffish, even with his family. We've been getting hints that something happened with Sabrina back when they were teenagers that left it a bitter subject for him, so it's fun to finally get their story! The Copper Ridge characters are always a joy to read and the plot is always thick with family love and angst.

Sabrina Leighton has never forgiven her teenage crush Liam Donnelly for rejecting and humiliating her all those years ago when she put her heart on the line and offered herself to him. Hurt and anger has festered and even though she has told herself she despises him, she still finds herself comparing every man she meets to how he made her feel ... and being let down when nothing ever comes close. She's being forced to work with him to get a new tasting room project completed before the Christmas festivities begin, but she's so not happy about it!

Liam Donnelly had a nightmare of a childhood and left it scarred and feeling like he wasn't good enough for a goodhearted person like Sabrina, so when her father offered him a free ride to college just to leave his daughter alone, he took the opportunity. He went on to prosper and make a lot of money ... and now is back in Copper Ridge playing his part at working the ranch with his brothers. It's obvious every time they run into each other that the draw and attraction is still there, so eventually they agree to act on it and get it out of their systems while they are being forced to work together on this project ... but when all is said and done, will either of them be able to walk away?

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, particularly in Copper Ridge, Oregon.

Falling for a bad boy once is not merely forgivable, but probably a rite of passage to adulthood. We all do it at least once, and usually learn that the wild ride isn’t worth the inevitable fall. Falling for one twice is a pattern. Falling for the same bad boy twice is usually well beyond foolish.

But not for Sabrina Leighton. In this second-chance-at-love romance, there are a whole ton of, let’s call them mitigating circumstances.

The first time she fell for Liam Donnelly, she was all of 17 and he was 20. There was a certain amount of young and stupid involved on both of their parts. And the fact is that while the emotions may have been very, very real, nothing actually happened outside of those emotions.

Thirteen years ago, the one real thing that they had was friendship – a friendship that Liam broke, along with Sabrina’s heart, when he left. Not without a word, but with a whole lot of words that have continued to haunt Sabrina all these years.

And most of those words weren’t even true. But the scars they left still hurt.

Now that Liam is back in Copper Ridge, as part of the Donnelly brothers return to town in the wake of their grandfather’s death (see Slow Burn Cowboy, Down Home Cowboy and Wild Ride Cowboy for the full story) Liam and Sabrina keep running into each other, whether Sabrina wants to or not. (You don’t have to read the entire Copper Ridge series for the Donnellys’ piece of it to make sense, but it probably helps to read this quartet)

Copper Ridge is a very small town.

That Sabrina and Liam have unfinished business is pretty obvious to pretty much everyone, even if not everyone knows all the gory details. So whether Sabrina’s boss (and ex-sister-in-law) Lindy sets Sabrina up to deal with her unfinished business, or whether that’s just a happy side-effect, Sabrina is stuck. It’s part of her job to work with Liam on setting up a tasting room in town that will feature wines from her winery and cheeses from his ranch – as well as trap a whole bunch of tourist dollars and funnel customers back to both their businesses.

It’s a great business idea – even though at least initially it feels like a really lousy personal one.

But the chemistry that Liam denied all those years ago, and that Sabrina wasn’t quite mature enough to understand, hasn’t abated one little bit in the intervening years. The only way that they can manage to work together is not to get past what happened in the past, but to go through it.

To hash out all the stored resentments, explore all that bottled chemistry, and attempt to get each other out of their systems.

Like that’s ever going to happen.

Escape Rating B: Christmastime Cowboy feels like the cherry on top of the Donnelly Brothers subseries of the Copper Ridge ice cream sundae.

Also a real “cherry”, as Sabrina has never managed to find a man who even gets close to turning her crank after Liam ran off all those years ago.

I love the way that this author does angsty heroines, but Sabrina’s angst didn’t quite have the deep, tolling bell ring of angst of the heroines of Down Home Cowboy and Wild Ride Cowboy. Not that Sabrina hasn’t been hurt, but her wounds seem a bit more self-inflicted that either Alison’s or Clara’s.

While the story loses a bit of depth in comparison with the others because of that, one of the good parts of Christmastime Cowboy is the way that Sabrina finally manages to figure that out for herself, with only a couple of glancing blows from the clue-by-four administered by Liam.

Not that he doesn’t have plenty of his own baggage to deal with. But his baggage was dropped on him by his dysfunctional parents. Not that he hasn’t added plenty of extra pieces along the way all by himself. But he needs multiple hits from that clue-by-four, not just administered by Sabrina, but also by his brother Alex, before he finally figures out what’s been staring him in the face all along.

So the story, as it has often been in this series, is one where the hero is just certain that he hasn’t got a heart, or if it’s still in there it’s three sizes too small and that he’s just not worthy of giving it to anyone else. Ever.

The heroine, on that other hand, figures out how to dump enough of her own baggage to start a real life for herself, one that she’d much prefer to have with the hero, but that she knows she can manage to make on her own once her stomped on heart finally heals.

As formulas go, this one is always a winner.

Christmastime Cowboy is the final book in the Copper Ridge series. But the romance is just moving a bit down the road to neighboring Gold Valley in Smooth-Talking Cowboy. No one needs to smooth-talk this reader to jump back to this author’s next series. All of this author’s next series!