This category romance, part of a long series of continuities published by Harlequin, has barely-middle-class Beth outmaneuvering super-wealthy playboy Drew by purchasing a small parcel of land right by the entrance to his upscale Thoroughbred horse farm, and annoying him every day thereafter, basically by existing.

Since then, all of their interactions have revolved around his resentment and her stubbornness, as he constantly tries to convince her to sell him her land and she refuses, until a rogue autumn storm sets a tornado on a path through their properties, and they end up trapped in her storm cellar, waiting for someone to move whatever debris is blocking the doors.

It may be that the book was published in 2014, and it’s now 2023, and we have learned far too much about far too many billionaires in the intervening years, but I just couldn’t get into the story at all; I found the worldbuilding absurd, and the characters flat.

On the worldbuilding aspect: if Drew is a billionaire, none of his behavior tracks; too many people use “billionaire” to mean “really rich”, without stopping to think that a billionaire has at least one thousand millions. At least.

A billionaire wouldn’t have spent almost two years trying to personally convince a nobody to sell him a bit of land he wanted; either he would have ordered some underling to force her out, or had some other underling offer her enough over market to allow her to set herself up elsewhere.

But okay, let’s pretend he’s just wealthy rather than obscenely rich–still makes no sense.

For example, we have Drew ostensibly going to town to volunteer with cleanup–because “they need all the help they can get”–while leaving most if not all of his staff at the ranch, where there’s zero damage. Because what, one rich guy’s manual labor is more useful in the aftermath of a natural disaster, than that of the same rich guy and his employees together?

As for our heroine, and I quote, “Beth’s mother had raised two kids on government assistance, leaving Beth with an aversion to asking for or taking help” as part of her internal dialogue, and the reason she’s supposedly resistant to accept any help from Drew; however, her big dark secret is that a few years earlier she had been in a relationship with a much older man who gave her a car and a few thousand dollars, which she accepted without much angst, which in turn is how she could afford to buy her small parcel of land to begin with. Was that not ‘help’?

But okay, lets just roll with that.

We are also told that Beth is very smart. Wouldn’t the smart thing to do here be saying to the billionaire next door, “okay, you want the land so much, this is how much I’m willing to sell it for” and name a sum that would allow her to set up her farm somewhere else with enough left over for a financial cushion, rather than have an adversarial relationship with the wealthy and powerful man next door who, in her eyes, is not all that nice?

Even after they jump each other’s bones–l think two days after the tornado?–their internal dialogue shows how little they know each other, despite their constant squabbling. Drew is concerned that she may be “stubborn like his ex-fiance” (he even wonders “what happened to all the sweet, agreeable women?”–I’ll leave my reaction to that to your imagination, dear reader), and I have to wonder how the past two years didn’t show him just how stubborn Beth can be.

For her part, Beth worries that Drew is being ‘nice’ to her to try to manipulate out of her land. And, almost at the same time, each agonizes over falling in love with the other one.

Speaking of them having sex, there are only two encounters, but boy, do they go on forever–lots of page space which could have been better used developing the relationship through a few honest conversations, instead of the obvious misunderstanding, third act separation, and less-than-dramatic grand gesture at the end. From Drew, that is, Beth’s grand gesture gave me the hives.

Now the thing about the sex scenes taking up unnecessary page space is not just me being cranky; I love me a well-written love scene. The problem here is that the book is barely over 180 pages, sets up the continuity, and introduces a number of characters who’ll get their own books later on; having pages and pages focused on these two going at it means that everything else is crammed in with very little rhyme or reason.

And if that wasn’t enough, there’s an abundance of secondary plot threads: Beth’s younger brother, also an alcoholic but with a long rap sheet, a naïve waif-like child bride and a baby, and a chip on his shoulder over Beth’s “uppity” ways; Drew’s younger brother and his pregnant girlfriend getting married; a whole lot about how the many super-wealthy landowners around town are personally volunteering with cleanup in town, and donating money (for billionaires, barely the equivalent of petty cash, but whatever) to help uninsured town families recover from losing property, personal possessions, jobs, and so on.

The book is part Cinderella, part noblesse oblige (the good aristocrats actually caring for the peasants), but set up in a world too close to reality to work properly as a fantasy–such as the fact that it’s set in small town, Texas, but there is not one Latinx character or Hispanic last name; not even the housekeeper or a ranch hand. The main characters are just a bunch of cliches–he’s wealthy and manly and sexy and kind and generous, but mostly just wealthy; she’s stubborn and independent and hard-working, and feminine, but mostly just stubborn.

Stranded with the Rancher gets 4.00 out of 10

Another AMAZING book by author Janice Maynard. I love her books and this one was no exception. Her sexy fun fast reads are perfect for a day when I just need to escape and jump into a great book. Love her writing and I always know I'm going to love the book itself.