I love Carolyn Brown books and this one did not disappoint! It pulls you in and wants you to keep going.

Jasmine decides to help Ace save his ranch by proposing to him and marrying him for a year. That was the plan. And then life would go back to normal since Jasmine has her Chicken Fried Cafe to run. Gramps had left a clause in his will that stated it would go to his cousin Cole otherwise. The prick doesn’t deserve it. And they won’t let him get it - no matter the cost.

But little did they know what would happen after the wedding. Lots of different things happen that they never would have thought. Good or bad you will have to find out by reading the book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebook Casablanca for allowing me to read this advanced copy.

friends marry to save a ranch, always love a book by Carolyn Brown, she never disappoints. love all of her books.

Another good book from Carolyn Brown! This was a fun and cute book. This was a quick read for me. Its fun and a little cheesy but who doesn't love that about a book to put you in a good mood. I will always recommend Carolyn Brown!!


Thank you NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca for allowing me to read this ARC in advance for an honest opinion.

You can't keep a secret as big as getting married even if you sneak off to Vegas to do it! Jasmine offers to go to Vegas to marry her friend, Ace, so he can keep his ranch. Due to a twist of fate, their little, secret wedding becomes a nationally televised romance story and now they have to actually pretend to be married. But when they are forced to share a bedroom, they learn that there is real attraction there. Can two people who have sworn off love and marriage actually find true love in a marriage of convenience?

I like that both of the characters were set on not falling in love and they both accepted each other's reasoning. It made the push and pull of their relationship make a lot of sense. I like that how everyone in town was not immediately supportive. Ace's mother had a pretty honest response. And then there are all of the women who got angry because he was off the market and they weren't shy about it. Jeez! This isn't a laugh out loud kind of comedy romance but it is full of all of the little crazy situations (like Ace's brothers moving into the house with Jasmine and Ace and forcing them to room together) that made the book fun and sweet. The way the author had them slowly come together as a couple was really nice. I enjoyed all of the side characters and their side stories. I was really rooting for Lucy to get love and for Jasmine to figure out what to do with her diner and how to tell her mother no. There isn't really a bad guy even if there is a character that kicks off the whole chain of events. He's got ill intent but he isn't the focus of the story.

This story is set in Texas and Vegas. This is a contemporary best friends to lovers story involving a cowboy/rancher and a diner owner. It is written with Carolyn Brown's signature twang and the assumption that readers just don't need to know absolutely everything about absolutely everyone in the story to enjoy it. If you are looking for a story that will make you smile and make you want to have friends that always have your back, give this a try. I will definitely read more from this author in the future.

So the basic premise of this one is great. Good friends get married to save the rancher’s farm. Queue a bunch of mishaps where the entire town, including parents, find out about the ‘secret marriage’, and a few of the many many brothers need summer jobs so the newlyweds are required to share a bed.

The characters are cool with flirty womanizer, Ace and no nonsense, cafe owner Jasmine making a good combo. If the plot had focused a bit more on their story, it would have been a winner. But there are hundreds (and I am not even joking ... hundreds) of characters, which makes everything every convoluted. Also, the major thrust of the story, mostly, is a big wedding planned by Jasmine’s overbearing mother. The mother’s ability to make her grown daughter do what she wants seems implausible because she is such a strong character, and then 70% of the way through the story of the wedding is just off. Although now the mother is insisting on buying the cafe (again, why won’t Jasmine just say no? Like a normal adult).

A couple small other things. The head hopping, especially when there are so many characters, makes it very difficult to follow. I find for the very first time why people say never to do it. It takes the mystery away, Specifically Lucy’s story that suddenly comes into it for about a paragraph. That is a story that I would happily read - it didn’t need a head hop.

Then one very last gripe - the cover. Ace has long blonde curls. Cover man is hot but short dark?

BTW I would still recommend this as a lazy Sunday read and I am keen to find some of the other stories in this series to read.

Ace Riley inherited his grandfather's ranch. He wasn't informed he had to marry in two years at the time. Jasmine King moved to Ringgold a year and a half ago and runs the local diner. Jasmine and Ace are good friends when he tells her about the will, she suggests they marry for a year. They go to Vegas to have a nobody knows wedding and end up with everyone knowing. They now have to live together at the ranch for a year and his brothers are also at the ranch for the summer season.
Ace has always said no one could get to his heart and Jasmine knows he's a real ladies man. Time together makes them realize maybe there is something between them.
Great read and wonderful to catch up with the other couples in town.

Ace and Jazzy are best friends so when he reveals the need to marry to save the ranch he inherited from his grandpa, she doesn't hesitate and proposes. Before you know it they're headed to las Vegas. The chapel chosen for the ceremony has a contest, unbeknownst to them. As the winners they're wedding pictures and details are shared on national news so everyone back home knows, even though they planned on keeping it a secret!

The hilarity ensues and after a series of unforseen events, they realize their true feelings for each other. They try to find ways to figure out if the feeling of romantic love is reciprocated.

What a fun and lighthearted book in typical Carolyn Brown fashion. A delight to read from start to finish! I received a free ARC eBook from Net Galley and the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I will leave my review on Amazon and B&N on April 11th

One Hot Cowboy Wedding is the fourth book in the Spikes and Spurs series by Carolyn Brown. Most books start at boyfriend girlfriend stage then move onward toward marriage, this book takes a huge detour and begins with the wedding. Trying to save Ace's ranch, him and Jasmine beat the deadline and get married in Vegas. What follows was a wonderful read, I loved the characters in this book and hope more of them will have further storylines. I would definitely recommend this book to others.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for free, I am leaving my review voluntarily and the opinion expressed here are my own.

Another great read from Carolyn Brown!

Jasmine and Ace plan a secret Vegas wedding but what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas.

Loved reading their story and seeing their friendship evolve

Book four of the series. Ace will lose his ranch if he doesn't get married. And stay married for a year. His best friend Jazzy offers to help him out. Can these two keep it on a friends only basis? Time will tell. Good story. Likable characters.

I received an arc from NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.

This was an easy read and a friends to lovers romance. A friend helps out another friend in a very big way and it turns into something greater.

I loved the Epilogue and getting that glimpse into their future as well!

Book 4 in the Texas series. This one has hunky Ace and Jasmine rushing off to get married in Las Vegas. Ace needs to marry to keep his ranch, otherwise a cousin would get it. Naturally the two were already friends, but being married they begin to fall in love too. Good story overall, and did enjoy it, but Jasmine's mother got on my nerves after awhile. Still though, would recommend.

This book contains many elements that I like, such as the marriage of convenience subplot,best-friends-to-lovers dynamics, and spicy scenes...nevertheless the freshness and energy of the plot are a bit lost in the middle of the book...which left me disappointed.

One Hot Cowboy Wedding by Carolyn Brown is a romance story concerning a wedding of convenience. A Texas ranch ownership is at stake, so Ace decides to find a wife to insure that his grandfather’s ranch is his. Ace and Jasmine find that pretend marriages can feel like the real thing with the love that goes with it. A fun lighthearted contemporary romance fthat is sure to please the reader.

I will admit that I was a little disappointed to start reading this story to feel as if this story was familiar. So looking through my books I found this book previously published. This is a reissue of the story first published in 2012. However, I did enjoy rereading it. The romance is great. I will also say I like the updated cover, too.

An ARC of the book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley which I voluntarily chose to read and reviewed. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I usually love Carolyn Brown's novels, but coming into this series at book #4, led to a great deal of character confusion that never really solidified into knowledge of who was who, who was related to whomever, and because this novel had so many characters from friends, to parents, to siblings, to ex-wives who were domestic abuse victims, I felt lost at sea throughout the novel, although I did enjoy the fake marriage/marriage of convenience between best friends trope--to a point. 3 stars

I very much liked the opening of this novel, in which best friends, Jasmine King, who owns and operates a local cafe, and Ace Riley, flirtatious cowboy, who has no plans to ever marry--that is until he learns that the ranch he inherited from his grandfather had a codicil he never bothered to read when he signed off on it 2 years earlier. It seems that his grandfather made his inheritance conditional on the fact if Ace wasn't married for a least year, the ranch would go to his cousin, Cole, who couldn't wait to sell it to the highest bidder.

Discussing this problem with his best friend, Jasmine, and with only 2 weeks to go before losing his ranch to Cole, Jasmine offers to marry him for one year to save his ranch, and off to Las Vegas they go--surprising everyone when their "secret" ceremony turns into a TV/newspaper media event because they were the 5000th couple to marry in the little chapel in Vegas, winning a limo driver, a wedding suite at the Bellagio, champagne and dinner. By the time they return home, everyone already knows about the wedding, and Cole believes the marriage to be bogus, not to mention that Jasmine's mother says that they aren't officially married unless they marry in Texas and then starts planning a nightmare of a huge, elaborate wedding.

What should have been simple became more and more complicated, but all the elaborate wedding hoopla went on and on and on--to the point where Jasmine wasn't the only one who didn't want to hear anything more about it--neither did I. Additionally, although this marriage was supposed to be in name only, this couple didn't waste any time in consummating it. Again--too much, too quickly, and too often.

Although there were plenty of misunderstandings along the way, there truly wasn't much drama or conflict, and for this reader, by the middle of the novel, it all felt flat and became rather dull, tedious and repetitive (including the sex scenes), and I struggled to finally get to the HEA ending.

All told, as a fan of more recent Carolyn Brown novels, this novel, which was previously released in 2012, didn't seem like the Carolyn Brown novels that usally give me the warm fuzzies and that I absolutely love. She's certainly a far better writer today than she was in 2012, and sadly, this novel made that rather obvious,. If you're going to read it, I strongly suggest reading this series in the order in which was written, to avoid rhe character confusion I experienced. This reissue is scheduled for release on 4/11/23.

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

The title of this one definitely got me to click request and I'm so happy I did. I had such a fun time reading Jasmine and Ace's story. While the tropes here could have felt incredibly gimmicky, I though this book was just so sweet. I enjoyed watching these 2 fall in love and honestly would read another book in this series. Praise the Lord and pass the biscuits! What a great line.

Sexy, cure, and just amazing! New author for me and was happily surprised with how much I liked this genre! Would recommend

This is a light, steamy, fun romp set in Ringgold, Texas population 100. Jasmine King is the owner and cook of the Chicken Fry Diner. She’s sworn off men after her long time boyfriend cheated on her. Ace Riley is a swoon worthy, muscled, blonde rancher. He is devastated to learn that the ranch his grandfather left him had a condition that he needs to be married within two years of inheriting. Of course the lawyer didn’t let him know till a week is left on the timeline. Jasmine, as a good friend proposes, saying she’ll marry him. Off to Vegas for a secret wedding. They weren’t going to tell anyone and file the paper work with the lawyer. But for other reasons they make the news as a feel good story and now both families and the entire town knows. Nothing to do but fake through it. Or fall in love and make it real.

This is the fourth in the Spikes & Spurs series although I read easily as a stand alone. There are clearly interactions with other couples from previous books. So if you have read them you get the added benefit of catching up and see who is having more kids. The romance works because they already are friends but I still thought the first time they were steamy was more about her drought and him thinking he is going to need to be celibate for a year. There is a little growth for Jasmine as she works on mommy issues with an over bearing but heart in the right place momma. This was just a feel good, fake marriage romance with good friends and family.

I absolutely will read more from Carolyn Brown. I know she has a been writing for three decades so she has a good size catalog of books. This is actually a re-publishing of a book from 2012. Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the ARC and I’m leaving a voluntary review.

Even though I knew how Ace and Jazzy's story would end up. I was very impressed with how they got there. Jazzy is a strong lady who takes no guff. Ace isn't a push over and can go toe to toe with her. I enjoyed reading this book very much. I was confused with the ending. What happened to her Cafe is a head scratcher for sure.

This was a fun friends to lovers story. I really like the two main characters, Jasmine and Ace. I enjoy Texas cowboys and this book fed that craving quite well. Jasmine and Ace make a great couple and I enjoyed following along to their Happily Ever After. This author's writing style is always highly entertaining.