Cover Image: It Started with a Cowboy

It Started with a Cowboy

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Member Reviews

Jennie Marts’ third installment, It Started With a Cowboy, of the Cowboys of Creedence series is both laugh out loud and swoon worthy at the same time. With Chloe’s unique thought process and penchant for not using swear words...both her inner monologue and her spurt out of her mouth the moment she thinks it phases, you just might find yourself chortling loudly as I did on so many occasions throughout the story. Combined with Colt’s obvious eye candy self, there are no shortage of moments when you almost hope the story never ends...then coupled with whip smart and wry dialogue, the pages couldn’t turn fast enough...most notably when the action really hit at the end of the story.

This is definitely a series that just keeps getting better and better with each new installment.

This ARC book was complimentary, provided by the Publisher and NetGalley. I am voluntarily providing my honest review.

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Colt believed in the curse that he plagued his life for years and interfering with the happiness he literally held in the palm of his hand. In a way to make up for his past, he helped anyone in need as a way of redemption. Saving the shy and timid school teacher was something that held more for him since she lingered in his mind for months. Chloe has zero self esteem and finding someone who would answers all her dreams leaves doubts. How could she possibly have it all when she had a less than stellar childhood? Maybe together they will help one another over some their pasts to a brighter future.

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Thank you for the opportunity to read and review one of your author’s titles.

I apologize that it has taken me a while to respond, as I should have been more prompt, however I have chosen not to read or review this title as it was not one that I found was able to hold my interest and my review would not have been positive.

As always, thank you for the opportunity.
Laura

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The third book in this series has Colt James coming home after a car accident has stopped his hockey career. Going to school one day to find his nephew which he does find. He also finds his teacher Chloe Bishop, who is good and full of confidence in the classroom, but not outside of it. Her home life was not so good with her father being acholic when her mother left the family and then was killed later. Leaving her and her brother with issues. James who wants to get to know her ends up running his plow into her car so now he drives his nephew and her to school. He does anything to break down the walls that she has built up. With Colt also coaching the children’s hockey he begins to deal with his lost hockey career. A book in seeing two characters change throughout the story. A good read.

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It was hard for me to rate this one. The writing alone deserves a 5 star rating, but the self esteem issues with both main characters was too much. Colt wasn't as bad as Chloe, and while I understand she had reasons for it, I'm reading fictional story. I would have loved for her to be able to overcome the constant berating of herself a lot sooner. It became monotonous to read her thoughts. And the no cursing? It was freakin ridiculous. I get not being able to curse around kids, but how about just not say them? Making up things like "forking" and "fudge nuggets" was like listening to a 10 year old. All that aside, I did love Colt and Chloe together. I thought they had great chemistry, and brought out the best in each other. I liked seeing the other brothers from previous books, and how their relationships were working out. The ending was sweet and perfect for these two. So, although this wasn't my favorite of this series, it is still worth the read.
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book.

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To me Jennie Marts always writes a good book, however this one lacked a little for me. Chloe is continuously self doubting and it got old for me. It was like she was broadcasting her self doubt and waiting for someone to give her attention. I love Colt, he is sweet, hardworking and ready to love her despite her self shaming. My problems were mostly with Chloe and her woe is me attitude. Can only give three stars at this point. I still love her books and will continue to read them for sure!

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It Started with a Cowboy had a good premise, and I really thought I'd love this story. However, I found it to be rather repetitive, and the two main characters, Chloe and Colt, lacked self confidence. They were also pretty immature in many ways, and that just didn't work for me.
This story felt more like a coming of age novel than an adult romance.

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Omg, thank you so much Netgalley, Jennie Marts, and the publisher for giving me a chance to read this amazing book for my honest review. This book has all a girl could ever want..... slightly bruised rugged cowboy hunk, helpful, sweet, handyman, n just man of my dreams. Lord have mercy look out for the steam coming off the pages. I couldn't seem to put this book down.

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It Started with a Cowboy is the third title in Jennie Marts' Cowboys of Creedence series, and compared to the previous 2 titles in the series I've read, this one left the most to be desired, and I cannot give it more than a 3-star rating.

The heroine, Chloe Bishop, is a shy, introverted, somewhat OCD, third grade teacher. She's great with children, kind, caring and admits to only being kissed 4 times in her 30-year life. She has a terrible self-image, and low self-esteem thanks to her deceased father, who was a verbally and physically abusive alcoholic, whose wife, Chloe's mother, left them both many years earlier. She's had a crush on a handsome, charming cowboy, Colt James, for months, but she's done nothing about it because she believes herself to be too dowdy, too unattractive, and too boring to attract his attention, although we soon learn that Colton James (Colt) has noticed and been attracted to her since the day they met. Chloe's next door neighbor, Tina, has several children, some of whom Chloe has had in her classes. Tina's a single mom with little money. She's divorced from her violently abusive husband, Rank, who has been incarcerated for several years after she finally filed charges against him. Her eldest son, Jesse, is in the wind, troubled, and afraid that his father blames him for getting in touch with the authorities, although he didn't.

One cold and snowy morning as Chloe was leaving for school, she volunteered to take Tina's other children to the school with her, mainly because she had a good heart, and noticed that they weren't warmly dressed, but as she was backing out of her driveway, a snow plow plowed right into her car. The driver was Colt James, who blamed himself for the accident, told Chloe he would have her car towed and repaired at his own expense, and then had Chloe and Tina's children climb aboard the snowplow and drive them to the school, also telling Chloe that he'd be picking her up and driving her to and from her job until her car was repaired. It's seems that Colt is quite the do-gooder around town, a volunteer firefighter, EMT, part-time deputy, and more. Chloe assumes that in keeping with his image, that his care of her is just one more good deed to add to his list.

Colt once had big dreams of a college sports scholarship and entering the world of the NHL (National Hockey League), but a car accident and the resulting damage to his leg ended that dream in 4 seconds. He was so surly during his recuperation that the girl who was engaged to him left, his long-held dream of a scholarship and career with the NHL was gone. He blames all his misfortune on a family curse, which seemed pretty ridiculous to this reader. For a handsome, kind cowboy, he too has a lot of self-doubt, especially because he's attracted to Chloe but doesn't want to let her know his feelings because of this imaginary curse. I liked Colt a lot, and couldn't understand why half the women in town weren't after him, and no mention of him dating anyone other than his ex-fiance was mentioned.

My main problems with this novel are Chloe-related. Since she teaches young children, she has come up with a slew of alternatives to using actual cuss-words, and while I found her substitutions both cute and funny at the outset, they went on through the entire novel, even when she was speaking with adults or even talking to herself and boy, did it got old--fast! My other issue was her seemingly endless self-doubts due to her being a chubby child who was the victim of her father's verbal abuse. Even once she and Colt get together, her self-recriminations, self-doubt, and low self-esteem caused her untold and unnecessary pain since she couldn't understand why he'd want her as anything more than a friend, and these negative thoughts and behavior simply went on for far too long.

Meanwhile, Colt is seeking ways to keep Chloe around, even teaching her to skate when the local kids wanted him to coach their newly formed hockey team. But that led to even more problems once their physical relationship began. For a woman who was admittedly the recipient of only 4 kisses in her lifetime, why was there no mention of the fact that in all probability, Chloe was in all likelihood a virgin. Yes when these two hook up, she's ready, willing, able, and bold--certainly not the behavior of the shy, introverted, repressed virgin as portrayed leading up to this point in the novel.

I liked Colt enough to be rooting for him and Chloe to finally admit their feelings for one another, but things went from one misunderstanding to another, each person not trusting the intentions of the other. When Tina's violent ex-husband is released from prison and attacks Chloe, who stands her ground to protect Tina's children, Colt saves the day and becomes her protector, moving her into his home on the family ranch, where things certainly heat up, but again, neither of them can get past their own issues or admit to anything more than friendship

While I liked this main characters, aside from hearing about their never-ending insecurities, I kept wanting to slap both of them when their internal dialogue about their own self-doubts led to page after page after page of self-recriminations and second-guessing each others' motives and such a wariness of revealing how they actually felt about each other, and I desperately wanted to slap each one of them and tell them to "get over it!"

What saved this novel for me were the secondary characters--Tina and her adorable children, the danger posed to Tina's eldest son, Jesse, Chloe's cat, Colt's golden retriever, Colt's rowdy family members, and the fact that at heart, and despite their feelings of inadequacy, Chloe and Colt really did work well as a couple of kind, generous, hardworking people with good hearts and a real chance for happiness, although the eventual HEA ending was a complete turnaround, literally and figuratively, and it simply happened too fast.

While this wasn't a bad book, it simply wasn't up to the high expectations I had for it after reading and loving the first two novels in this series. It works fine as a standalone, and if the aforementioned issues don't get to you the way they got to me, it's a book I think you'll enjoy, although I do recommend reading the books in this series in the order in which they were written, simply for the background information.

I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.

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First book for me by this author, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Characters were well developed, and it was easy to follow the storyline and the understand the other characters' backstories without having read the previous books. A really lovely story, I'll be checking out the others in the series.

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Colt James is back home on the family ranch, and he’s done taking risks. A car accident ruined his shot at a professional hockey career and messed up his love life, and he’s not taking a chance on anything that seems too good to be true. Especially not on Chloe Bishop, his nephew’s irresistibly charming teacher and the one woman he can’t stop thinking about. Chloe Bishop liked her life the way it was—orderly, structured and safe. Life goes from managed to messy when Colt talks her into helping him coach a hockey team of rowdy eight-year-olds. Being this close to the cowboy she’s crushing on is dangerous territory. But when a real enemy threatens Chloe, Colt will do anything to protect her. Even if it means risking himself—and his heart.
This was a really cute story. I loved both main characters and all of the side characters. I loved both Chloe’s and Colt’s caring natures in regards to the children. I really enjoyed it and recommend. **I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

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This was a wonderful story, and I loved Colt. This is the third book in the Creedence series, but the first book that I have read in the series. The chemistry was great through out the book and I loved the sweet side of Colt. I would highly recommend this book and I plan on reading the first two books.

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Totally, totally not my kind of book.

Look, I try to stretch myself sometimes outside my comfort zone of historical romance, paranormal romance, and queer romances, and I often venture to the world of M/F contemporary romance. I also (rarely) dabble in cowboy romances, though it really isn't my usual thing. But It Started with a Cowboy irked me from start to finish.

The book starts off with a huge info dump of "telling" instead of "showing," and I knew, I knew that this wouldn't be the story for me. Also. right off the bat, we get insta-mushy feelings from a guy who barely knows this 30 year old teacher. He is waxing poetic about her in an intimate, lovey sort of way, which didn't jive with the level of their interactions.

Ruh-ro...

Both of these MCs also had piles of insecurities that kept them from showing any sort of initiative. They both act like timid birds, dancing around each other, and it wasn't in a fun, sexual tension sort of way. The female MC's incredibly low self-esteems bothered me to no end. Also, her little phrases that she used to avoid cursing gave the book a Christian romance sort of feel, which isn't my thing.

The whole story was too slow, too contrived, and too irritating for me to enjoy it all that much. Maybe contemporary romance fans or fans of cowboys would love this one, but it wasn't my kind of story, I'm afraid.

*Copy provided in exchange for an honest review*

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I really enjoyed Colt and Chloe’s story. It was a bit slow in parts, mainly because they were both trying to come to grips with their pasts. They had great chemistry and were both confused about where things were going. The hockey kids were adorable. Some parts reminded me of a video of a toddler skating with a hockey stick. I hope Logan gets a story.

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I very much enjoyed It Started With A Cowboy. Ms Marts writes with passion and humor. I appreciated the crisp dialogue, it seemed so suited to the characters. Though I havent read the first two book is the series, I wasnt lost at all. The happily ever after journey is not without it's trips and stumbles, but the primary couple is engaging enough to have me rooting for their success. I will seek out the other books in the series.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

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This is the third book in the series about the James brothers of Creedence, Colorado. The first book was about oldest brother, Rockford, NHL hockey star and the second about middle brother, Mason. This is about youngest brother, Colt, who we had glimpses of in the other 2 books.

Colt could have been a hockey pro too, as he was even better than Rock, but an accident caused by his own carelessness cost him, his hockey career, girlfriend and college scholarship. He got it in his head that he is cursed, so spends most of his spare time, when not working on the family ranch, the Triple J, helping others. He tries to avoid the attraction he has for grade school teacher, Chloe Bishop. Chloe also has a head full of negative self talk. She was brought up by an abusive father after her mother walked out on them. She can't understand why someone as gorgeous as Cole would be interested in a frumpy school teacher, so when he is threaten by her next door neighbor's ex, she assumes that Colt is just helping her as a friend. The two of them are like yo-yos, giving into the attraction and then letting the negative voices in their heads, push the other away. This is so real. Will the thought that they might lose the other, force them to finally open up and express their fears of love and loss?

I received a free, advanced copy of this book from NetGalley.com. This is my unbiased and voluntary review. While it can be read as a stand alone, why would you want to when their mother, Vivienne raised 3 such irresistible men? The characters are wonderful, the plot compelling and the narrative masterfully written. In addition the author includes both a skating and self defense lesson, provided by Colt to Chloe.

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✦Blog Tour, Review & Giveaway: IT STARTED WITH A COWBOY by Jennie Marts https://wp.me/p3d0RZ-b6T
Publication Date: April 30, 2019
Genre: Western Contemporary Romance
Reviewed by: Reading in Pajamas/ Donna
Rated 4 Stars

I enjoyed this story of two people finding their confidence and how they learn to let go of their pasts. Colt was sexy, handsome and a truly nice man. I liked Chloe well enough but wish she hadn’t come across so needy at times. At one point, she should have been the one to come forward to apologize, not Colt. That being said…they were good for each other. The danger to her was believable and flowed nicely with the story, showcasing her hang-ups, personality and giving nature. I also love the people around them, family and friends with their lifelong banter is something I enjoy in books. It’s a nice and sexy romance that left me smiling.

*Review copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Kindle https://amzn.to/2CH51Yz

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I loved my first book by this author! Great characters and an exciting, inspiring story. I can't wait to read more of her work. I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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This was a good book! I enjoyed the differences between the hero and heroine. Although there were times I wanted to smack them both upside the head and tell them "communicate your feelings" LOL. I did love how protective Colt was! It was a great weekend read. Just long enough that I could read and finish it in one day!

I received an advance copy from the Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my open and honest review.

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Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Avid Reader – ☆☆☆☆
M/F Romance
Triggers: Domestic Abuse

Colt is a cowboy through and through. Despite having some rough times in his past, when he was young, he now wants to make sure that the people of his small town know how much he appreciates their help. He loves his brothers and his family, but there is one woman who has caught his eye and while he might not quite know how to approach her, he knows that he'll find a way.

Chloe is a woman who is trying to overcome her past as well. Despite being an amazing teacher and friend, Chloe is lonely. She doesn't have great self-esteem and when she thinks that she's caught the eye of a hunky cowboy, she's not quite sure how to handle the attention. Old insecurities rear their ugly head. When her neighbor kids are endangered by their absent and dangerous father, she has to make sure she can protect the kids and herself.

Colt is not letting Chloe out of his sight. When he realizes that she might be a target for the angry dad next door, Colt makes it his mission to protect her.

These two dance around each other until one of them is brave enough to say what they both are feeling. However, with old insecurities and superstitions following them around, they will have to decide if their relationship is something that can get off the ground.

It's a sweet story that follows a predictable storyline. However, it was enjoyable.

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