A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon was a fun read but definitely had some room for improvement. While the storyline itself was a fun set up (a famous female black chef loses her memories and falls in love with a hot cowboy), there wasn't quite enough detail in the characters to be honest. I enjoyed the building of the environment they were in. It was fun to see how this family is successful both in the movie/tv industry and in the vacation industry, but I do wish that Weatherspoon had put more thought into the people. You could tell that the Pleasant brothers, actually the whole family, really cared about Evie, the famous chef, because they grew up together, but the main focus really seemed to be on how hot they were as cowboys, rather than having a personality worth falling in love with. Overall, it was a fun and sexy read, but I don't think it was as detailed as it could have been. The ending seemed rush and just too easy. I would love to see another story about Jesse though.

A Cowboy to Remember is a contemporary romance centered on the trope of amnesia, where Evie, a Black woman and famous chef is injured and loses her memory before reconnecting with her childhood crush (a handsome Black cowboy named Zach) who she hasn't spoken to in 10 years.

Unfortunately, I found this book to be remarkably boring with uninteresting main characters and very little in terms of relationship development. This feels particularly glaring since I just read Rafe by the same author (which I highly recommend!) where the characterization and relationship development was SO good. In this case, most of the book is focused on Evie dealing with her memory loss and re-learning how to cook, and occasionally wanting to kiss Zach despite their relatively minimal interaction. I think it's trying to rely on the fact that they have a history together, but it really did not work for me.

On the other hand, there are some very interesting side characters! There is a sassy grandmother who was a famous actress and broke ground for Black women in the industry. There is an older brother who doesn't talk much and is physically huge, but is a total softie inside. I would totally read books about them, but I couldn't figure out what Evie liked about Zach besides the fact that he's attractive and wears a cowboy hat.

The pacing is weird as well. Much of the book is (like I said) about Evie having amnesia and regaining her cooking skills and that really dragged. Then near the very end she suddenly regains her memories, eye-rolling drama ensues, and we get a very quick ending. I was definitely disappointed with this, but the highlights were the entertaining side characters and the discussions of race and prejudice in the entertainment industry. I received an advance copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

A Cowboy to Remember is the first book in Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Cowboys of California and once again I am reminded why I love Cowboys! This story has everything; wonderful visuals of the vast and glorious landscapes, familial bonds, reliable friends, and sexy as sin, magnificent Cowboys. Some plots with complex issues are hard to convey, but Ms Weatherspoon does an impressive job of detailing Evie’s amnesia and makes it totally believable. Zach and Evie are a wonderful couple, and the secondary cast inspire the belief that more wonderful stories are yet to come.

I just couldn’t get into this book. I love this author, but amnesia is not my trope. I thought I’d give it a chance in her hands, but it just didn’t connect for me. I loved the female friendships and Miss Leona. But the romance was much lower heat than I’m used to for this author. if you like amnesia, it is well done here. It’s just not for me.

I really enjoyed Evie and Zach's story. The love story was good and I found myself attached to many of the characters. I was very pleased with the ending. The flow was great. Well done.

I really enjoyed the setting and the characters in this book. I'm a nurse and tend to be picky about the medical aspects of books with plots that are driven by or focused on an event or injury like this, but I really like how Weatherspoon pulled it off!

I binged this read, and finished it in a day. There was a little something missing in the interactions between the main characters for me, maybe because I didn't really feel sucked into the drama behind why they stopped talking in the first place. The stakes didn't seem high enough for me to believe it's a good reason for them to have stopped talking for 10+ years without even attempting a reconciliation.

Otherwise an incredible read and I can't wait for the next book in the series.

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Rebekah Weatherspoon is one of those authors who is raved about, both as an author and for her other contributions to the romance community (such as WOCinRomance), but I never had the time or opportunity to pick up one of her books until now, with A Cowboy to Remember. And while I’m not 100% sure this was the best place to start with her work, I still enjoyed it for the most part, especially given how out-of-my-wheelhouse it is. I’ve only read a handful of Western romances in the past, and all were historical. However, I ended up loving how picturesque it was, and it proved to be an enlightening reading experience.

The two MCs are both likable and have a great dynamic. I like that Evie is the succesful, Hollywood-esque one, and that really sets the tone for how her interactions with people change after she loses her memories. However, it never feels like the, “They only care about her because she’s famous,” so there’s no contrast of “shallow vs. wholesome,” which it could easily have turned into.

I love the exploration of both Evie and Zach’s feelings with respect to their past and the thing that led to their estrangement and coming back together. The memory loss element adds to the tension, with only Zach being burdened at first, and Evie confronting these issues later.

But the amnesia trope has always been an odd one for me, and while I did know what I was getting into, it just seemed weird at times, so it could just be a “me” thing, especially since issues with communication, for whatever reason, seem to bug me.

This book is a lot of fun, and sets up a potentially great series. I recommend it to fans of Western romance.

This was an okay book for me. Of all the supporting characters Miss Leona and Jesse were who I didn't skim through. The rest seemed to just be there to take up space and the whole villain thing was almost pointless.

The start of a new series from indie favorite Rebekah Weatherspoon, A COWBOY TO REMEMBER is a perfect storm of tropey goodness. Second chance romance between thwarted childhood sweethearts, amnesia (!!), tv chef darling heroine and wealthy cowboy hero? What's not to love!

All that just for the heroine Evie to get her memory back and leave…. man listen.

I loved the idea of this story, black cowboys in California OWNING their own ranch…yes more of that please.

BUT, this romance… it was boring as the day is long. I read no chemistry between Zach and Evie. I mean for the most part, the sexual tension between them was cute and kind of hot but I just wasn’t interested in whether they would end of together.

I feel like the story took a turn to dull and monotonous as Evie was on the ranch trying to gain her memory back. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the interactions between her and Zach’s family but for me, it bogged down the romantical parts of the story and wasn’t that what we were here for? Eh, I guess. This also leads me to a gripe I have with the story in general. Why the heck pretty much all of Zach’s family was in contact with Evie when Zach wasn’t. Like I get not wanting to deal with a man when he broke your heart… Oh, I understand that on the real, I do. But I just thought that was some weird family flexing going on when Zach found out AND then for his own family to be treating him like he purposefully did what he did towards Evie pissed me off. Like listen, if my family can’t support me in my screw ups, then I wants no part of them. To me, it just wasn’t realistic, and I didn’t like it.

Also, at times during reading, I felt like the author wanted us to know these characters and the story surrounding them was a Black story. I get it but it felt at times a bit forced and not authentic.

All and all, this read as a first in the series kind of book and that’s fine...and... we do get a HEA. I’ll invest in the other books as there is room for progression in Cowboys of California.

*Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read/review.

A COWBOY TO REMEMBER is a second chance love story with an amnesia plot line featuring a chef and a cowboy. Pick your favorite trope! It's also a kind of a slow burn, with both MCs being really cautious about the relationship.

The first chapter, before Evie loses her memory, sets you up for a high drama story with rival chefs and danger in every stairwell. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the book was fairly low drama (minus that total loss of memory thing) and focused on loving and supportive relationships within a large family. Things get dramatic again in the last 20-25% of the book, but after we've had time to grow attached to the characters.

The rush of action toward the end of the book is definitely in contrast to the rest of the story. Is it a problem? Not for me.

I liked the characters in this story and will be happy to spend more time with this cast in future books.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for review.

My Review of A Cowboy to Remember was published at All About Romance on February 13, 2020. Here is the link:
https://allaboutromance.com/book-review/a-cowboy-to-remember-by-rebekah-weatherspoon/

My review has also been posted to my Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3120074982?book_show_action=false

A Cowboy to Remember is a charming book about a second chance romance between Evie and Zach. I loved getting to know the Pleasant family. Miss Leona was probably my favorite character and I want her to teach me how to cook. I really enjoyed watching Evie relearn how to cook and falling back in love with it. I loved that Zach didn’t try and manipulate the situation in his favor. He let their relationship run naturally and didn’t force or use anything to his advantage. Pleaaaaaase tell me Jesse’s book is next??? I’m really excited to learn more about him.

I couldn’t get into this book and I tried. I was tempted to put it aside but I kept at it hoping it would pick up. The whole time I kept thinking this is just information being shared about some characters, it felt more like an outline an author would use for a book. Ms. Weatherspoon is one of my favorite authors so I look forward to this expanding into a series. She set up the cast perfectly to have their own stories to be told.

Included in SBTB's monthly New Releases post, which highlights upcoming books for the next month: https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2020/02/februarys-new-releases-part-two/

DNF at 72%. Rebekah Weatherspoon is still a favorite and I still want to read anything and everything she writes. But this one isn’t working for me and I’m forcing it and that’s when it’s time for me to stop.

My recurring stress dream is that I was on the show Top Chef - only I can’t remember it. It’s now airing and I’m watching every week with friends and family and I have no idea which episode I was eliminated during. It is VERY stressful. And poor Evie almost sort of gets to live that in this book.

Evie was on a show much like Top Chef and after it ended went on to be on a show like The Chew. At a party, there’s an incident and she gets a head injury that makes her lose her memory. She goes back to California to recover where she grew up. And there we find hot cowboy Zach. I enjoy Zach a lot. I love the great communication RW models in her books. But I’m just not feeling connected at all. Maybe it’s because of Evie not having her memories. This one is a pass for me but I will definitely be back for Weatherspoon’s next book!

Thank you Kensington and Netgalley for the advance reading copies.

I was immediately drawn to this book once I read the blurb. I mean who could resist an amnesiac celebrity chef and her cowboy crush! Bonus, I had wanted to read this author for awhile, so I jumped on this.

I really liked how the author dealt with the amnesia storyline, it was not over-the-top and melodramatic, and actually seemed quite realistic. I really believed in Evie’s progress from waking up confused and weak to rediscovering her talents and who she was. Evie was probably the best part of the book for me as I really admired her strength of character and how she never settled for less than she deserved even though she was just so NICE. It was also great to see such a strong female friendship group that supported each other.

However, I didn’t really enjoy the pacing of this story and I think this problem was due in part to having too many secondary characters. Most of the secondary characters left little to no impression on me and seemed extraneous to the plot. It would have been a tighter story with better flow if we could concentrate on a core set. This also impacted my investment in Evie’s and Zach relationship as the plot veered unnecessarily into interactions with these other characters instead of driving forward.

The villain of this story was one-dimensional, but I actually really enjoyed that and had fun being able to whole-heartedly hate the character. This played well into the soap-operaesque set up of the story and I was totally into it.

Overall, I enjoyed this story even though I wished that the plot was tighter. I will definitely be checking out the rest of the series!

I think it's fair to start off by saying this is not your average Rebekah Weatherspoon book. That's both good and bad. The bad is this... Zach didn't do much for me as a love interest. Now Rafe? Mason? Those heroes are the reason why I read RW books. Zach was just there. There was no real build up or tension between the two of them. I love RW's writing, but this just wasn't my bag.

This was a really enjoyable premise, and a very well-written book. It tells the story of Evie, who is reunited with "the one who got away" (a sexy cowboy named Zach) after she develops amnesia. The plot shows Evie re-connecting with her loved ones, re-learning her skills as a chef, and navigating her growing feelings for Zach, which are complicated by the fact that she can't remember the big argument that caused them to break up as teenagers.

There are a lot of strong points to this novel. The writing is really enjoyable. While the amnesia trope isn't everyone's favorite thing, I thought this novel did a great job of taking an improbable premise, and grounding it in an interesting exploration of how forgetting everything would change your friendships and sense of self. The female friendships and familial relationships were a highlight of this book.

The plot slowed a bit in the middle, but the strong characterization kept it compelling. I didn't always buy exactly why Zach and Evie were so into each other in the present timeline: the book leaned heavily on their past to explain their current attraction, which was a bit frustrating when half of the couple couldn't actually remember that past.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book, and would definitely return to read more of the series.

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

You can all tell by now that I love, love, love Rebekah Weatherspoon! I was so very excited to receive this ARC of her latest book. As usual with RW, I finished this in a day.

I instantly adored Evie. She's a sassy, smart, driven, yet fun protagonist. Plus, she's a chef, and got her fame from a reality TV cooking show. This is everything I could want for a leading lady.

Zach is a sexy, Californian cowboy. I didn't know that was a character I needed in my life until this book. Now I want a full series on the ranch, please and thank you.

So, this book has a whole amnesia trope. But I feel like it wasn't cheesy or sketchy. it was really well done. Zach wasn't hiding his past wrongs, and he didn't take advantage.

This book was so different than RW's normal style. First off, there were chapters from a third character, Evie's agent, because there needed to be a way to fill in some plot holes while Evie was still struggling. I thought this worked pretty well. They weren't long or drawn out, so I didn't feel like they were distracting. Also, this book is not nearly as sexual/ smutty as her norm. While a bit surprising, I feel like it worked well given the plot and the characters. It was all much more traditional romance.

There are so many wonderful secondary characters here. Jesse, Lilah, Blaire, Ms. Leona. I want them all to have their own books ASAP. Looking forward to the next installment of the Cowboys of California series!!!