The Best Cowboy Christmas Ever
by June Faver
SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca
You Like Them
Sourcebooks Casablanca
Romance
Pub Date 29 Sep 2020 | Archive Date 30 Sep 2020

This is a very well written romance. Thanks to Casablanca and Netgalley for the ARC. Our patrons love a good Christmas cowboy romance.

4 star

Angelique grabbed her daughter Gsbi and fled the wrath of Gabi's father's family. She's landed in Texas, where she hopes to find and be accepted by the man her mother identified as her father. James Garrett is a wealthy man with a family that is both skeptical and welcoming. Then she meets Derrick Shelton, the local sheriff who is almost another Garrett son. You know what's going to happen and it does- but it's. good read. You will root for this couple. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A light read.

What could be better than cowboys and Christmas?

The Best Cowboy Christmas Ever has a lot of romantic suspense with Angelique Guillory on the run from New Orleans to protect her daughter to a lot of romance between Angelique and Derrick Shelton, the local sheriff. Angelique is searching for James Garrett because her mother said that he was her father but when she finds him but her oldest brother isn’t so sure about her being their sister leading to all sorts of family issues in the Garrett family.

If you cowboy romances with a lot of suspense, you will like The Best Cowboy Christmas Ever because cowboy romance are even better when they are set at Christmas time.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

If you love Christmas and cowboys this is a must read this Christmas season. Angelique and her daughter Gabrielle leave New Orleans quickly and head to Langston, Texas where she finds a whole family that she never knew she had. Most of them accept her on her word but a few are skeptical. Angelique has secrets - she is in danger and some one from her past will not rest until he has what he wants. Will Angelique and Gabrielle get to stay in Texas and be part of a huge family Christmas with the people she is starting to love? Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author, June Faver for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Angelique and her daughter Gabrielle are running from Gabrielle’s crime lord grandfather, Antoine Benoit, and toward the father Angelique never knew of. Derrick is the local sheriff who has started to fall in love with Angelique. But will the Benoit find her before Derrick can protect her?
This was a lovely and engaging Christmas story. It is very well written; it spun the tale and drew you in to a world so fresh yet familiar.
The plot was satisfying and at times gripping, at times sexy. Derrick was sweet and romantic and Angelique delightful.
Both we truly relatable. I would recommend this book to my patrons. Note to librarians: although this is part of a series it can easily be read as a standalone Christmas story.

Angelique and her daughter are on the run. She's hoping to find safety with her father whom she's never met. To complicate matters more her father doesn't even know that she exists. Can she and her daughter find acceptance?
I really enjoyed this book it grabs you right at the beginning and doesn't let go. I'm excited now to read the rest in this series.

I looked forward to reading this book as I had previously read a bit about the Garretts', and this sounded like more goodness to a smalltown Christmas journey, including a big family, big on Christmas.
The surprise was awesome, a wow, didn't see that coming, what's gonna happen now moment. The drama surrounding this gave me mixed feelings, and I felt the writing deteriorated somewhat after that.
I couldn’t get a read on Angelique, nothing about her grabbed me. She had a ton of baggage I didn't feel could be rectified the way it was, or as fast, it was all too pat. I felt the angst and fear, but her not telling anyone is an old trope I am so tired of.
Derrick, I liked, and had to laugh because he HAD to be uncomfortable when feelings escalated. He was now the sheriff, yet still the life long friend of the Garrett brothers, and like a son to Big Jim. Awkward here lol!!
Parts of the book I think would've made fantastic reading were glossed over, like the mixed feelings of the brothers. No one talked much about the actual validation of their thoughts. Why no one dug into the circumstances, like a background check? I mean Misty works at a law office, Derrick is the sheriff.
So the journey didn't flow as well as I like, yet it was interesting for the majority, and I got the Merry Christmas HEA.
I was given an advance reader's copy through Netgalley and am leaving my own thoughts voluntarily

I loved this story. Angelique and Derrick have a great story. Finding her family she didn't know and falling in love was a great adventure. Throw in a sweet baby and you can't go wrong.

Heartwarming Christmas story about a family who gets a new gift of a new family member. Angelique might appear out of nowhere, but she’s desperate to escape a bad guy. Luckily, her newfound father is crazy about her, and so is Gabe. Gabe will do anything to protect her. But someone else will do anything to find her. Cowboys, Christmas, with love and suspense makes this an all-around great read.

Another really nice Christmas read. June Faver is a new-to-me author and I liked her writing style. I love a cowboy romance and Christmas is my favourite season so this book covered all of my reading favorites!

I thought it was so cute the way that Big Jim took to being so protective of Angelique and Gabi. Derrick falls hard for Angelique right away and Gabi steals him heart along with everyone else's. The Best Cowboy Christmas Ever, is a great book about finding family and Christmas.

Angelique comes to town in search of her father. Runs into a snowdrift on her way there. Rescued by sheriff Derek.
You can revisit past characters.
Angelique and her little girl are likeable. The sheriff is swoon worthy.
Enjoy Christmas stories.
Good cowboy romance

I have been provided with a review copy of The Best Cowboy Christmas Ever from NetGalley for an impartial review. This is the first book in the brand-new Garrett Family Saga series and this was just such a great way to start off a new series. I just really enjoyed this story and I just didn’t want it to end. I just lost myself in and I just couldn’t get enough of these interesting characters. I can’t wait to see what’s next from this author.

A very well written romance. This book has all the ingredients for a good read, romance, suspense, and a cowboy. I highly recommend this Christmas romance.

The Best Cowboy Christmas Ever has it all: danger, a mobster, a woman on the run, and romance. The Garretts are a tight family that extends to the in-laws. Big Jim and his sons are a formidable group. Angelique is a woman on the run who runs straight to her biological family, who don't even know she exists. She is quickly assimilated into her new family and even develops a new relationship woth the hot sheriff, Derrick. However, she and her daughter are still in danger. My favorites were Big Jim and Derrick. Maybe the romance got too heavy too fast for reality, but it's a Texas cowboy!

When Angelique flees New Orleans, running to Texas in search of her father, she never expects to meet hunky sheriff Derrick. A good story, good characters and a good Christmas story too. Had a hard time putting this one down. Would highly recommend this book and author.

The overall premise for this book was good, but I found it lacking somewhat in its execution. I did like Angelique and Derrick and enjoyed watching their relationship develop, but some parts of Angelique's story were either too easily resolved or too over the top which made the story less believable. I felt like there were two extremes to her big paternity reveal - either people were immediately on board with it or refused to believe it at all. The fact that those who accepted her as Big Jim's daughter did so with no reservations took some of the realism out of the situation and Colt's refusal to even consider that Angelique was his half-sister was too far in the other direction. I also thought that Angelique took to calling Jim "dad" a little too easily/quickly. Even with a family resemblance, who doesn't think a DNA test is in order? The villain of the story was too over the top as well - his complete power over everything in New Orleans didn't really come across as believable. I also hated that Jim wouldn't let Angelique do anything around the house - he could help pay for things therefore she didn't need to find work for herself? This was especially annoying because it was so clear that she wanted to be doing something rather than relying on all these men in her life.

Where do I even start with this review? This book was so badly written (disjointed thoughts; some chapters were merely listing daily activities everyone was doing; several times the author repeated the same descriptions throughout the book, etc.) and the story itself was so unbelievable that I really wanted to stop reading. But I kept going because I really wanted to finish it.

The Garrett family is strange for so many reasons. The dad, Big Jim, discovers he fathered an illegitimate child with his college sweetheart and never knew until she found him many years later. If Big Jim was so in love with his college sweetheart, why didn’t he try to find her after she failed to return to college after her freshman year? He doesn’t talk to her all summer and never calls her to find out what happened? They were “in love”, but that’s a strange type of love.

Angelique is the long lost daughter that crashes into the Garrett world. Colt, the oldest son, doesn’t trust Angelique. He assumes she is pulling a scam on his dad. Colt’s wife acts sheepish around Angelique also. Then one day they do an about face and they want to be best friends with her. Strange.

And who finds out they have a long lost daughter without calling the rest of the family together to make the introductions? Instead, they just let the family phone tree work it’s magic. Again, very strange.

The sheriff falls INSTANTLY in love with Angelique and she falls for him as well. Even though the true love of her life just died - who was also the father of her baby. More strange.

Angelique introduces herself as “Angel”, but no one EVER called her that in the book. Strange.

And the book is filled with so many extra facts that the readers don’t need. It actually made the book very tedious to read.

The mafia is even mentioned in this book. And the main mafia man decides to come after Angelique himself instead of using one of his hired hands. Yeah, that’s not going to happen in real life.

I could go on and on with many more examples of just how strange this book is. Just trust me.

All in all, this book was not enjoyable.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The opinions stated above are mine without biases.

I read this book in one day. The story is well written and the suspense had me on edge the entire book. Would she run, would she survive to run? Will the oldest brother accept her or will he stick to his "scam artist" view?
This review was given off an arc provided by the author. However, that did not influence m review. I read the book in one day. I didn't want to put it down. A real page turner.

I did not love this book. I actually have considered not leaving feedback for it, because I worried that my opinion might not be fair. I haven't read the other books in the series - and this book is very much an epilogue to those other books as much as it is a standalone. You certainly didn't need to read the other books to understand what is happening, but perhaps if you had read them you would like this one a lot more.

Angelique Guillory is the daughter of the patriarch of the Garrett family from a relationship he had with his college girlfriend. She didn't know who her father was until her mother told her just before she died. Angelique and her young daughter headed on to Texas, fleeing a bad situation to find her family and try to connect with them. The prime focus of this book is on the reaction of her half-siblings and getting to know her father (with a side order of Angelique falling in love with the local Sheriff). There is a lot of time spent with her three half-brothers and their wives during the book.

Its a cute premise and a great little small-town cowboy story. So why didn't I like it? Well - a lot of the book just didn't make sense to me. Like why no one asked questions about Angelique's past - other than confrontationally when they thought she was a scam artist. Or why Big Jim didn't bring all his children together to talk to them and introduce them - rather than letting them find out over the phone. Or how Derrick decides he's in love after meeting Angelique twice and only talking to her briefly (I know - when you know, you know - but this seemed more like lust than love). I also didn't understand why Angelique wasn't more forthcoming with her family about where she came from and why. Or why we even talked about Mark's story about a family Christmas - when we didn't get to see or here what he wrote? Or why Misty had to quit her job if they wanted to have a baby? Or why they couldn't just freaking talk about things all together and ask Angelique about why she was there rather than just speculate endlessly?

Overall - there was a lot of talking and "feeling" in the book but not a lot of communication. I didn't fully feel the "love" between Angelique and Derrick and so many many things didn't make sense - and I'm not sure they would have even with more context if I had read the other books.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley and these opinions are all my own. I'm sorry I didn't love it!