The romance itself in this story had promise and the fake relationship trope is one of my all-time favorites. Violet and Walker had a lot of potential and their first meeting is a good one. What doesn't work for me is the immature handling of addiction recovery as well as Walker keeping it a secret for so long.

On their own the characters are quite interesting, it's just when they have trouble individually that they become a codependent mess rather than mature and supportive. Transparency and common sense would help them both out tremendously. Walker was by far the bigger problem here though.

Keeping his status a secret, dating a sommelier, beginning a relationship too soon in his recovery, working at a winery, avoiding his support...the list goes on and on for how inappropriate this is. I can understand a rough journey, but it wasn't even written into the story to be a prop for his development, it was just careless.

There were some very, very sweet moments and their chemistry was absolutely there, so it wasn't all a lost cause, there were just some major red flag issues here that didn't sit well with me at all and decreased my enjoyment of the overall story.

I have been looking forward to Walker's book since the very beginning of the series, and Hard Loving Cowboy exceeded my expectations!

A.J. Pine is a fantastic storyteller. She creates flawed, real characters who you can love and romances with heat and heart.

Violet and Walker have a very interesting first meeting when she kisses him to get rid of her ex. From the very beginning their chemistry is undeniable, even as they both have reasons they shouldn't be together.

This story did a fabulous job wrapping up the Everett brothers series, although I hope we get to revisit them again in the future!

4 stars
Another great story by Hard Loving Cowboy. I loved Hard Loving Cowboy and boy did my heart break for him and all he went through. The entire book I was up and down, happy and sad for his journey. And Violet was the perfect for for him. She was made for him. Loved this book!

This was not my thing. I thought I'd give it a try because I had never read anything like it, but it didn't do it for me. It felt slow and the characters didn't come across as having chemistry. I feel like maybe if I knew more about the other characters, I might have felt more invested.

I thought this was a good read. Although this story has a lot of big things to deal with, I didn't feel like it was depressing or too bogged down with the sad parts. Walker wasn't in a good place when the story starts, and he meets Violet after he gets back from rehab. Violet meets Walker when she's trying to make someone else jealous. Although they didn't have the greatest of beginnings, I thought they were good for each other. I know that Walker's sobriety should have been made known to Violet, but I understood why it wasn't. I could understand Walker wanting someone to not know the other version of him. I know other reviewers had problems with this, but I don't read romance novels to get tips on how to stay sober. I feel like it's not something that needs to be 100% correct in a book like this. I thought Walker and Violet had great chemistry, and they helped each other through a lot of things. The only thing that took away from the story for me was all the characters. I haven't read any of the other stories in this series, so the brothers and their significant others, and the sheriff and his gf were a lot of names to keep up with. The ending was very sweet, and I thought it ended well.
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book.

I really enjoyed Hard Loving Cowboy and how Walker overcame obstacles to become who he is today. Falling for Violet could have put his problems front and center yet he was willing to give it a shot. Violet is cute, spunky and driven. I had a small problem with her lying to her family, but was able to get past that real quick. Great read with laughter and love!

You know what's funny? Up until this year, I didn't think cowboy romances were something I'd enjoy all that much. I mean, I've dabbled in the past when an author I love put one out, but that's been about it. I can thank A.J. Pine and her wonderful Crossroads Ranch series for opening my eyes to this trope. Hard Loving Cowboy was a delightfully sexy read that made me want to go in search of a cowboy of my own.

Speaking of tropes I love, fake it till you make it is up there near the top of the list. Oh how I love a good fake relationship, especially when you just know it's going to be not-quite-so-fake before it's all said and done. Walker and Violet were great characters and a wonderful match. After seeing Walker in the first two books, I enjoyed getting to know even more about him and his past and see how it impacted his future. There was so much more to him than met the eye. Violet was a sweet, loyal and determined heroine. I appreciated that quite a bit. Together they were fire.

I love these Everett brothers — and their leading ladies. The Crossroads Ranch series has been a total joy to read. I especially enjoyed how these books explored the relationship between the brothers along with the romance. The family dynamic just adds something more to the overall story and I've enjoyed peeling back the layers of each of the brothers. Hard Loving Cowboy was an excellent addition — and conclusion — to a series that was one of my favorites of 2019.

Favorite Quotes:

From the shoes to her pressed shirt and her perfectly styled hair, she was class and sophistication personified. He was—well, he was one fine mess.

"Didn't take you for an ass man."
"I'm an everything man. And you, Violet, have everything."

"I've actually never been too good at rules. Broken a lot more than I've followed. That's for damn sure."

If I had a favourite…

We’re not supposed to name favorites I know but, honestly, I’d been waiting for Walker’s story for what seemed like forever. He drowned his pain in a bottle, many of them, not seeing another way. With his brothers and the ranch, though the lifeline he desperately needed was at hand. He needed every ounce of courage and strength he had to move forward and love was not in the plan…

I simply loved Walker and Violet together. Loved their inability to just say no to each other – they just couldn’t do it. The way they adored their family and gave as much love and support to them as they received in return. I wish I’d learned more French in high school, because the fire their flirty conversations stoked with each foreign word, burned and burned… Their seductive dance sung brightly between dramatic scenes that touched my heart and ensured nothing was a given.

Missteps, mis-communication and a need to dig deep into realizing what they really needed to be happy meant an ending that was just perfection. I will be re-reading this series again because I’m not ready to leave Crossroads Ranch quite yet. Maybe their aunt could find her one? That would be awesome, Ms. Pine!

Violet never wanted Walker to be more than just a friend, but when she needs to charm her parents into believing she's got life under control, their chemistry fires up. He's a cowboy and she's slowly falling in love with him.

A good story with wonderful characters that will win you over. The bonus story is too cute.


*thanks to Forever for the ARC**

A great ending to this series! I loved this whole series so much and am sad to see it end.
Walker has always been a hot mess and Pine lifted him up and gave him room to work through his very heavy baggage. His friendship and the subsequent relationship was lovely to experience. I appreciated that he had to buckle down and work through his issues and that he showed his family how capable he truly was.

As usual, I'm reading my first book by this author and, as usual, it's the third or fourth book in this series (there was a book #1.5), so I was fairly clueless when it came what happened in the previous novels, but the author did a fairly good job of filling in some of the gaps, and it worked just fine for this reader as a standalone novel. I was able to discern that all the novels in this series relate to the brothers who now own and operate Crossroads Ranch, located in the Napa Valley, and who are in the process of growing a vineyard and building a tasting room which will feature and be stocked with their own home-grown vintage wines. Just a word of warning though--there are certainly a number of triggers within, relating to alcoholism, child abuse, cheating, etc., but all are deftly handled, and helped me give this novel 4.5 stars.


The one brother who is involved in the building of the tasting room, but who won't be partaking of those wines, is Walker Everett, the youngest brother, and when we first meet him, he's barely conscious, thoroughly drunk, is a bloody mess, has a broken and bloody nose, two black eyes, has fallen through a tap room window, and is in the process of being arrested for being drunk and disorderly--and he's no stranger to those charges. When Walker and his brothers lost their mother to cancer more than a decade earlier, their father was devastated and turned to alcohol to dull his pain. Unfortunately, alcohol also turned him into an abusive monster, with Jack, the oldest of the Everett brothers, who did his best to take the beatings and abuse to protect his younger siblings. When Walker turned 18, his father sent him a bottle of bourbon, and drinking the entire bottle in one sitting helped Walker become an alcoholic, just like his father, the man he hated most in the world. He's spent the last 10 years drunk. In lieu of formal charges, Walker is given an alternative--pay to replace the window and spend the next 2 months in a rehab facility, and he agrees to do both.

After sobering up, and returning home, Walker is still taking it one day at a time, using hard physical labor as a deterrent, but testing himself every night with a bottle and a shot glass, and so far, he's been able to resist the temptation they pose to his sobriety. As someone who lives with a recovering alcoholic, what the author missed here was a program, like Alcoholics Anonymous, with regular meetings to attend, and a sponsor to help Walker along with his recovery. The fact is that most alcoholics who try to stay sober alone after drying out, fail to do so, time and time again.

It's in the midst of working on building the tap room that a young woman suddenly appears, dropped off by her ex-lover, because she's applying for a job at the winery to be their sommelier. She just learned that her former employer/lover, is already married and a father, so no sooner is she dropped off at Crossroads Winery, when she spots Walker, rushes to him and she lays a major kiss on him. He has no idea who she but doesn't object to their kiss, and Violet begs him to play along. That kiss, and Walker's appreciation of the beautiful young woman, becomes the start of an on again/off again friendship/relationship at the winery. We learn that her name is Violet, and she tries and succeeds at convincing Walker to also be her pretend boyfriend in front of her parents--both of whom run a restaurant in Santa Barbara, about 90 minutes away by car, which is where Violet gained her knowledge of wines. Violet's mom has multiple sclerosis, and the family can't afford to have her treated locally with an experimental treatment protocol, but since her mother is also French, she can receive treatment there, and Violet is working multiple jobs to earn the money to get her mother back to Paris.

One of the things they suggest to those who complete rehab is to avoid romantic relationships and anything stress-related during your first year of sobriety. That's a tough job for someone like Walker, who's building and working at a winery, all while trying to hide his alcohol addiction from Violet, with whom he shares some extraordinary sexual chemistry, and dealing with the demons of his mother's death and the memories of his father's drunken rages. He knows his brothers are watching and waiting for him to fail, and so he avoids people, including his family, as he struggles alone with maintaining his own sobriety, and his relationship with Violet is one in which he is repeatedly exposed to situations where a glass of wine or champagne is offered.

Both Walker and Violet are extremely likable as is the depth of their attraction to one another, the complicated situations they each must face, Walker's own personal demons, and the dreams these two characters want to fulfill, all play a part in this very well-written novel, which, at its heart, is about kindness, forgiveness, acceptance, and the redeeming power of love. While I would have preferred a longer lead up to the abrupt HEA ending, this is a moving novel, with memorable characters, dealing with tough subjects, and I highly recommend it.

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

No one writes a cowboy romance like AJ Pine. The slow build to romance and the real life problems these damaged but deserving characters struggle with are certain to keep a reader enchanted with each page. Walker knew he had a problem and was struggling with controlling his addiction while pleasing those around him. Violet was an unexpected surprise. She was sunshine in Walker's dark world and soon the pretend world of fake fiance seemed more real than ever. This book was sweet and funny with sensual moments that felt genuine and true. I love getting caught up in a story with such incredible characters.

DNF 18%

I just couldn't get into this book. The story of how Walker and Violet met was cute, but honestly I found it incredibly immature and irresponsible especially given she knew she was at the place where she was supposed to have a job interview.

Walker having a job at the winery just didn't fit with his back story especially being straight out of recovery. I could see having him work at the ranch if he needed a job but then having nothing to do with the winery. But having an alcoholic at a winery, especially one so new to recovery with no support system (where was AA?) just doesn't work.

** ARC received from Netgalley **

A. J. Pine delivers on this engaging “pretend boyfriend” trope. It is a solid read for anyone that loves cowboys, family dynamics, fake relationships, and fun in their romance novels.

I have really enjoyed A.J. Pine's series about the Everett brother and Oak Bluff. The stories are great and the characters are compelling. This book stands on its own however, do yourself a favor and read the previous stories too, Second Chance Cowboy and Tough Luck Cowboy.

I voluntarily reviewed and ARC of this novel.

Hard Loving Cowboy by A.J. Pine is a modern day romance.
Walker and his brothers are opening a winery on their California ranch. They had a terrible upbringing at the hands of their father. Walker has been drinking since he was 15 and has just left rehab. He's struggling with his surroundings although he's not drinking again.
Violet is daughter of a restaurant owner and a French woman who has MS.
They're thrown together and spend time together which leads to more time spent.
This deals with alcoholism, abusive family relationships, loss and terminal illness in a positive, realistic way.

This was a fun book and I really enjoyed the simple fake boyfriend scenario. Felt like watching a romcom and I was fully for it!

I love a good fake relationship. I believe this trope can also be portrayed as cheesy, so I do proceed with caution. However, A.J. totally rocked the emotions of Walker and Violet!
Walker (excuse me while I sigh) was a big man with big problems and the bigger they are the harder they fall! I loved watching him fall!
Violet, is a bit of a conundrum. She is sporadic, impulsive, and passionate. And she is fierce, strong and determined. I did feel like her personality didn’t always match up and the author could have chosen wild and free or driven and professional.
This is the last book of this series, it can be read as a standalone. But it was a tad confusing coming into the world with a few other couples and business adventures. We could have gotten a little bit of clearer world building. I am excited to go back and read the first few books!

A milestone has been made in this series and I will tell you about that later, but first, let me tell you about a little story that took me too long to read. Oh, it was totally my fault because my children have major test coming up and I have been up to my eye balls in work. Anyways, this review will focus on the third installment of the series title Hard Loving Cowboy by AJ Pine. I absolutely loved book one and two in this series, but did I love this one? Hmmm….let's find out.


First off, this story is about the troublesome younger brother of the Everett brothers and I could not wait to read his story because I was so intrigued by him and I really wanted to know what made him click and which lucky woman will take him down. If you have read the previous books in the series, then you know that the Everett brothers' mother died of cancer and their father drowned his grief in alcohol. Their father was very abusive and Jack was seriously hurt while trying to protect his brothers which caused the boys' aunt to take them in. Walker has followed close to his father's footsteps by seeking comfort in alcohol. Violet rolls in the scene, literally, and plants a big kiss on the unsuspecting Walker and that, my lovers, is how the story moves forward. Violet arrives at Crossroads Ranch for an interview to work at the winery that the Everett brothers are currently constructing. Violet doesn't know about Walker's past, she only knows the man standing right in front of her at this moment. What will happen if Violet finds out that Walker is a recovering alcoholic? Will Violet accept Walker for who he really is?

I adored Walker because he had such a rough start and he had a great character arc. He was scared to show Violet about his past and who could blame him? Walker had never been in a serious relationship before and his feelings for Violet caught him off guard. The one thing that I want to applaud the author for is not making him into some tool who sleeps around just for sake of sleeping around. I loved that about all of the Everett brothers. Violet was bi-racial, French and I loved the little French lessons that she taught Walker. It lifted the story in a wonderful way and it gave her character depth. Another thing that I like in this story was the family dynamic. The love the showed on the page made the story feel grounded and genuine. Violet's love for her parents forced her to make some huge sacrifices. The town of Oak Bluff, as a whole, was a pleasure and I liked how everyone cared for Walker, but he felt like it was prison, which in actuality, Walker was making himself the prisoner.

Now, I mentioned earlier that a milestone was made in the story and the milestone is that this is the only story in the series that I did not love. I really wanted to but the story dragged on and the chemistry between Violet and Walker was not as great as the previous couples. I like Violet and Walker, but the story had one angle and there wasn't enough going on to keep me interested. It really pains me to say this because I loved the rest of the books in the series, including the novella for Pete's sakes. The story did not grabbed me the way that I had hoped and Walker was not as intriguing as he was in the previous stories. Darn it, I wanted to love this story, but I have to be honest with myself and my audience. I only have 3 stars to give and I didn't need a blanket or my tea for this story. I just needed my kindle.

3.5 Stars
Review by Elizabeth
Late Night Reviewer
Up All Night w/ Books Blog

I was drawn to Hard Loving Cowboy by AJ Pine on the title alone. Anything involving a cowboy has me grabbing it and reading it right off the bat. However, with Hard Loving Cowboy, I could not connect with the characters no matter how hard I tried.

We meet Walker first and he has some major issues to overcome. Then we meet Violet. Her introduction was intense, to say the least. I’m not going to deny that there was chemistry between Walker and Violet. They had that going for them from the beginning. My issue was not connecting with them individually and it made it all that much harder to read.

I think AJ Pine did an excellent job with the book because the plot is there. Everything is there. Since I was not able to connect with the characters, it was a bit hard to read and because of that, my review is not awesome. I am not scratching AJ Pine off my TBR list because I am looking forward to see what she comes out with next.

***ARC received in exchange for an honest review.***