Secret Nights with a Cowboy was an enjoyable read featuring a marriage in trouble romance.

Riley Kittredge has only ever wanted Rae Trujillo but they married far too young and their love went up in flames only two years into their marriage. Despite their troubles, they've never been able to stay away from each other and they continuously return to each other over the years. But this time when Rae shows up it's not for pleasure, instead she demands a divorce. Rae knows she and Riley don't work and she should have walked away a long time ago. And now Rae wants more from life which means letting Riley go which turns out to be a lot harder than either of them expected.

Marriage in trouble isn't one of my favorite romance tropes so I was a bit hesitant going into this book. Unfortunately that aspect wasn't done very well in my opinion as we don't even find out why Rae and Riley separated until almost three-quarters of the way into the book. I mean Riley doesn't even know why until then either which was just baffling to me as how can you leave your spouse without even telling them why? While the reason behind it was heartbreaking, I just found myself frustrated that Rae never told Riley what happened and that it took 8 years for them to have that conversation. So if you're looking for a great example of this trope, I don't think this is the book for that.

I did end up enjoying other aspects of Rae and Riley's romance. After Rae tells Riley she wants a divorce, she rejoins the dating scene only to realize she has no idea how to date anymore. Riley comes up with the crazy idea that they'll help each other date other people which was fun and goes about as you would expect. Plus the steamy scenes between them were enjoyable and I loved the history they had even when it wasn't always a happy one.

Overall Secret Nights with a Cowboy was a good start to the series and I will be continuing the series and picking up All Night Long with a Cowboy soon.

I really had to shove my feels aside for this books. Having been in a broken marriage and having taken the secrets with me, I understood so much of what was being hidden. I really liked this book and the reality of how it was. It was a great beginning series book.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I didn't want to put it down and I was reading it on my phone as I carried it around. It was nice to be sucked into a contemporary romance book again. Caitlin Crews is a very good writer, and while the story might have seemed kind of basic, it wasn't. There was so much emotional and relational resonance in this read.

I really hate to write bad reviews, but sometimes it can't be avoided. I had a very hard time getting into this book, and it never really did grab my attention the way I need a book to do. Riley and Rae got married right after high school, but they've been separated for 8 years. Yep, 8 years. But, don't worry, Rae has been stopping in for booty calls a couple times a week all that time. Insert eye roll here. I very much disliked Rae. She was immature, and the big secret that she held onto all that time, was just drug out entirely too long. Riley was the opposite of what I like in a hero. He let Rae just walk all over him, and put up with all her childishness. They could have cleared up all their mess with ONE CONVERSATION, but I mean, that would have been too adult I guess. I've read other books by this author, and really enjoyed them, but this was not one of them. I will still be willing to read her again.
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book.

Wow! I am so in love! Riley and Rae’s story is amazing! I knew I would love it, but I was not prepared for the book hangover from this book! This book literally has EVERYTHING! This one definitely is going in my re-read stock! AMAZING!!! Just loved it! Happy reading everyone

Was a great read from beginning to end.. Highly entertaining, sweetly sexy, action packed and emotionally thrilling hometown adventure filled with engaging charters, witty dialog, heart racing twists and undeniable passion.

Riley and Rae, oh my, these two have been fighting and loving and fighting for years. Married and everyone thought divorced but really not. Rae has been secretly, or not so secretly, showing up nearly nightly at Riley's and then going back to her own bed before morning but now eight years later something snaps. They are both from dysfunctional families, not going to try to say who has the most dysfunctional, but the best thing to happen is when Rae actually moves out of her family's home and into town. Secrets have a way of coming to light but Rae has to actually tell someone that secret and the one she needs to tell is Riley and only then can they start to heal. When that happens only then can they start to come together. These two really do make some magic together when that happens.

Sweet Nights With A Cowboy
This one is just an AHHHH and added to the ending of Secret Nights with a Cowboy. This one is about the youngest Kittredge brother, Conner, and his first and only love, Missy. She left after high school and returned only occasionally to visit family, always with a ring on her finger but never with the fiance. Now she is back in town without the ring or fiance and when Conner gives her a ride home and a kiss goodnight the sparks are still there. This one was sweet with a courtship of sorts and winning back his love and proving real love can turn to true love and long-lasting love.

Frankly did not enjoy this one. Took way too much time meandering in unnecessary scenes before actually getting to the meat of it all, by which point it had lost my attention. Did not find Rae to be a sympathetic let alone likeable character, so it was hard to root for her throughout

Oh I love second chance stories and this one is a really great one! The characters are so real and so much fun. You will really enjoy this story!

This is book 1 of the Kittredge Ranch series, Riley Kittredge has always know what he wants, his land, his horses, and the woman he loves, Rae Trujillo. When she comes back into town to seek a divorce from him, he knows that is not what he wants. He wants her. She wants a family, can he convince her that he wants the same thing so he can keep her?

Riley is a man who answered to no one but himself. Riley’s heart belonged to one person and that person was currently driving him bonkers. I was on the down slope with Riley at the first part of Secret Nights with a Cowboy , but as the plot went on I was able to connect with Riley much better. His struggle to be a good man, loving son was evident as was his love for one woman.

Rae is a force to be reckoned with, good lord this heroine made me dizzy. Rae has a secret that was the cause of her leaving everything she ever wanted including her husband. I see a lot of growth when it comes to Rae, even though she seems to keep to herself her emotions you fell as a reader deeply.

Riley and Rae both suffer from having dysfunctional family and their drama this made life for them difficult to say the least. Rae’s secret is eating at her, very troubled by that secret. I felt her inner battle, the need to tell . Riley needs to know what drove Rae away, what keeps bringing her back. Riley and Rae has a special dance over the years, but now things need to change. Can they change?

The supporting characters are interesting enough with their own dramatic moments, but they do offer a insight to Riley and Rae. To much family options is often the cause a little chaos. Secret Nights with a Cowboy at times I felt was a bit to slow in the plot building, but I felt that it was needed to really get to know the main and supporting characters. Caitlin Crews delivers a heart felt story with heart break, healing, long lost loves and a small town that just don’t know the meaning of private business. *Grins* All which made Secret Nights with a Cowboy such a lovely read. Anything is possible when there is love in your heart, you just have to let it in and hold on tight.

Rated 5 Stilettos by Deb!

Caitlin Crews is a winner at writing Cowboy stories.

The fun, the passion, the town, the characters, all so memorable.

An autobuy for me and this is unmissable.

After all the references to Rae and Riley's marriage and separation, I was really looking forward to this book. It ended up falling a bit flat for me, though.

Rae and Riley have been married but not fully together for the past 8 years. She's never told him why and they still see each other frequently when she can't stay away. They both still love each other but there is this intense push and pull. I think it made the first 2/3 of the book drag a bit. Especially because her secret wasn't revealed to the reader or Riley until really far into the book. The pace did pick up in the last 1/3 and there was growth for both Riley and Rae which was nice.

I also liked getting to see more of Cold River and its residents. Especially those from previous books and ones who I hope will get books in the future.

High School sweethearts got married young, but one day Rae Trujillo left Riley Kittredge without giving a reason. The story begins four years after the breakup. The plot was well-written to feel the emotions that the couple goes through as secrets are revealed. The characters are flawed, making them believable.

This is a Cowboy Romance, and this is the 1st book in the Kittredge Ranch series. I have to say I have a love to hate relationship with this book...lol. I could not put it down, but I also wanted to sit down the two main characters and just yell at them to just grow up. I love the ending of this book. Basically, The two main characters are so hard heading they just do not want to tell the other one they cannot live without them. Overall, I loved the book. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (St. Martin's Press) or author (Caitlin Crews) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review about how I feel about this book, and I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

When I started Secret Nights, I thought I would end up DNF-ing; instead, it sucked me in and I read into the wee hours and again at dawn. I’m groggy and tired, but trying to understand why I enjoyed it as much as I did. To start, I think the reason I thought I would DNF is there’s something about Crews’s narrative voice that grates. When I start one of her novels, I’m instantly turned off by the feeling she’s leading me along her narrative; I can see her composing on a computer. If I end up enjoying the novel, then it’s because, despite that intrusive storytelling voice, the sheer romance-y-ness of it is compelling. In this case, it was (in others, not) and I don’t even enjoy marriage-in-trouble romance:

Riley Kittredge has always known exactly what he wanted. His land, his horses. His woman. He met and married Rae Trujillo far too young, and their young love combusted right after they said their vows. But their passion has never managed to burn itself out. Yet when Rae shows this time, it’s not a night of pleasure she demands, but a divorce. Rae should have moved on a long time ago. She knows she and Riley just don’t work. They might make great lovers, but that doesn’t make a marriage. And now Rae wants a new life, complete with a baby. But when her husband offers to be a father, to give her the family she’s always secretly desired, she and Riley will both have to face demons from their past—and choose love over fear at last.

Riley and Rae were high-school sweethearts and their young love didn’t exactly combust until “something happened” and Rae left Riley to move back in with her parents. Then, for the next eight years, Rae drove to Riley’s horse ranch, to the house he built for them, to fight and have sex. Eight years of yelling and sex doesn’t seem plausible to me because surely a person needs some peace and friendly conversation? What do I know, though, spinster that I am? A friend of mine once told me that her 30-year marriage consisted of yelling and great sex, so maybe? In any case, when the novel opens, Rae asks Riley to divorce because she wants to have a baby. Her friend Abby’s baby, Bart, has set all hormones firing. This is less of a plot point, in the end, than the blurb suggests and that was a good thing. I’m glad baby-making didn’t play such a great role, instead the working out of a relationship where’s there’s a lot of love, but not much by way of understanding, forgiveness, or communication.

Those “secret nights” in the title? Not so secret. The town of Cold River knows all about Riley and Rae and their public separation and private marriage. The only secrets are the ones Rae is keeping. While I’m rubbish at guessing the whodunnit, I’m pretty good at romance “sekrets” and I’d figured out what was going on, given Rae’s internal monologue of pain and suffering, way before she finally told Riley. Poor Riley, despite rugged good looks and elemental-as-the-Colorado-mountains stoicism, was clueless. In eight years of fighting, you’d think Riley would have demanded some answers, but I guess being as elemental as earth and sky also makes you silently forebearing. Except this also made Riley self-righteous in his patience and love and made Rae immature and mean in her temper tantrums. While I hate to admit it, this made for compelling reading.

The latest romance trend for rom-coms is about the meet-cute. I love a meet-cute (see my review of Pineapple Girl), but a convention we don’t see as much in these cartoon-cover-rom-com days is the “line in the sand”. In friends-to-lovers and marriage-in-trouble, the relationship opens in a state of stasis, where the couple has been playing out the same old patterns over and over again. Then, in place of the meet-cute, comes the “line in the stand,” the point at which one of the two protagonists seeks to change the pattern and the other reacts, that is, resists the change. I think what I found compelling about Crews’s romance was that one “line in the sand” follows another, inexorably as hero and heroine navigate relationship change, one or the other decides what they’ll tolerate/accept or not, the more “nots” the less believable the HEA; the more compromises, the more convincing the HEA. The narrative moves like a murder mystery, whodunnit and whydunnit become “Will they work it out?” If that narrative impetus is maintained with great dialogue (Crews’s is especially fine) and, in this case, family and friends who give key advice (one of Crews’s strengths), then it works.

While I remained annoyed at Crews’s storytelling tone, there were moments of good writing, which made me pause, smile, and appreciate them. Like: “Because fighting and making up was … fighting and making up. It wasn’t a relationship. War and sex wasn’t putting down roots, it was tearing them up. It wasn’t Corinthians.” That final little reference, to the Bible verse that is quoted in more weddings than Khalil Gibran (thank the wedding gods for that mercy), it was good and apt. Riley and Rae could use some “patient and kind”. Once they realize that, both of them, there’s not much left to the HEA, which came a tad too patly, but I was no less glad for Rae and Riley.

Caitlin Crews’s Secret Nights With a Cowboy is published by St. Martin’s Paperbacks. It was released in December 2020 and may be found at your preferred vendor. I received an e-galley from St. Martin’s for the purpose of writing this review.

SECRET NIGHTS WITH A COWBOY - Caitlin Crews

#1 in the Kittredge Ranch romance series

SECOND CHANCE - 3 stars

Plot - 3.5 stars - Rae and Riley fell in love in high school and married soon after graduation. But their entire relationship has become tempestuous--full of passion that can be anger or sex, but very little in between. But Rae wants (or thinks she wants) to move on and has moved out from her parents' house and plans to date again. Although Riley seems like he's going along, he's obviously got an ulterior motive when it comes to their long-term relationship.

Writing - 4 stars - I was caught up in the story right from the first page. Of course, it helped that we've met Riley in previous books in the original series so he was already familiar. And his and Rae's relationship kept things moving.

Characters - 3 stars - Riley is a great hero--the strong and silent type who is the typical brooding alpha, but not too over the top. Rae was my problem with this book. She's nice enough, but she's so undecided that I just wanted to shake her at times.

Title - 3 stars - Pretty self-explanatory. Rae and Riley continue to get together on a regular basis in what they think are secret get-togethers, yet the whole town pretty much knows what they're up to.

Cover - 3.5 stars - This is a pretty typical cover for the western romance genre, but I like that it's just a great-looking guy without showing naked abs. A little more subtle but still very attractive.

Overall - 3 stars - Overall this was just a pretty depressing book. Both Rae and Riley come from dysfunctional families, so it was inevitable, I suppose, that their marriage would also have problems. They even recognized the fact that they were just on a continuous cycle of fight/make-up/fight. So they spent the entire book struggling with their feelings about their relationship, somehow not recognizing their trust issues and their strong feelings about each other. And it was clear to the reader that a simple conversation could have gone a long way toward bringing them together or at least opening their eyes so they could make an informed decision about their future. I found this book to be frustrating, and I was a little disappointed since I totally loved the previous series about Cold River. That won't stop me from continuing with this series, though, since I like the setting and have so far enjoyed most of the characters involved.

It took me a while to warm up to Rae and Riley, I liked the story but felt it dragged at a few parts and could have been shorter. That being said let me tell you what I did like about the story....

I love second chances, and this one had a unique twist because Rae and Riley were married but separated, one day Rae up and moved out and Riley didn't understand why. Their relationship never really ended because she would make late night visits to their home and spend a few hours in bed together, well that was until she showed up asking for a divorce.

Rae had a secret that no one knew about, I did figure it out early on because there were some clues but you have to be paying attention or you may miss them. Anyway, this secret is a big one and it's something that drove her to leaving her husband that she really did love. Riley and Rae still loved one another deeply but Rae didn't think they could be together.

I mentioned earlier that I felt the book dragged a bit and that could be because I wanted Rae to stop the internal fighting she had going on and just man up and tell Riley what was happening so I was getting frustrated but I'll leave that to you to decide for yourself, you may enjoy the inner turmoil she had going on.

Riley and Rae got married a long while ago while they were too young and their relationship has always been a rocky one. Both clearly are passionate about one another but Rae keeps trying to keep some sort of distance and finally let him know that she wants a divorce but Riley doesn't want that.

I love second chances at romances I'm a sucker for them every time. I loved how passionate they were but I hated how toxic what they were doing was. They wanted eachother but Rae kept putting that wall between the two. You can't help but want to yell at Rae at what she was doing. Riley has what seems like an endless amount of patience, way too much if you ask me he was a good guy and wanted things to work out but clearly Rae is going through something. Overall this was a pretty great book I really enjoyed it

Riley Kittredge and Rae Trujilllo, married right after graduating high school in the small town of Cold River, Colorado. Things were fine for a while but they soon realized they married too young and hadn’t grown up themselves enough to make this relationship work. They separated but never divorced, until the day Rae decided to show up and ask Riley for a divorce.
They have many different opinion, for example having kids. They had agreed neither wanted kids because of their childhood home lives, but Rae has a change of heart and assumes (wrongly) that if she changed her mind she’d have to find another man willing to be the father.
There is a lot of ups and downs with the couple as they try to find a father for Rae’s future baby all while not being totally truthful with each other.
I had a little bit of a hard time getting invested in this story (also with the Christmas themed novella that follows) but plowed through. It had some good moments for me but probably wouldn’t be a re-read in the future. 4 stars.