It's a bit weird to read the last book of a series first, but I was lucky enough to get to read this ARC on NetGalley and didn't want to miss my opportunity.

So while I don't have the history and background of the rest of the characters, it was incredible to get to bear witness to Cam and Dusty's love.

High school sweethearts navigating being in each other's lives again and a failed marriage-of-convenience are always great storylines, but the standing up against strict and shitty parents (mothers specifically) really took the cake for this being an awesome book...and of course the spicy parts!

Now I have a new series to read and add to my books-to-buy list!!

Thank you so much to Dial Press for the opportunity to read this one early! Those who know me, know I love this series and Lyla Sage's writing more than I can properly express. This was just the most perfect way to end the series. Dusty & Cam's relationship is the definition of a soft place to land and they are SECOND CHANCE EXCELLENCE!!! All the cameos from the characters and seeing their relationships outside of their books made my heart supremely happy. Dusty is the blueprint for an ideal yearning and down bad man. Cam's resilience and her steadfast nature and growth was lovely to witness. It is so bittersweet that this series has come to an end but my world is better for having been able to immerse myself in it the way I have since Done & Dusted's indie release back in 2023. MY HEART IS SO FULL!!!

Wild and Wrangled by Lyla Sage

slow-paced
Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
Star Rating: 3.75

This was my first time reading the Rebel Blue Ranch series. For the most part, I was able to understand and follow along with the different characters/relationships & the general routines of the Ranch. Some of the supporting characters did feel a bit static, however, I think if I read the previous novels they would feel more flushed out. Overall, this is absolutely a book you can just pick up and enjoy without needing to read the whole series first. It was a fun, quick read & I can definitely see myself returning to the series/rereading this one once published (maybe check out the audio version too?). The cover art is also super cute!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an advance copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an advanced Ebook copy!

This was a lovely addition to the series. While Teddy and Gus will always be my favourite in the series, Dusty and Cam have been a solid second chance romance and satisfying end to the series as a whole.

While I read it as an ebook-- I've listened to previous books in audio and its wonderfully narrated-- I would recommend listening to the series.

Love, Love, Love!!! I discovered Lyla Sage books last year and read the first three books in the Rebel Blue Ranch Series in 3 days. I have been eagerly awaiting Wild and Wrangled. The set up done with Cam and Dusty's characters in the earlier books was just enough to get me invested, but not enough to spoil this story.

Cam and Dusty have intense chemistry and an even more intense past. Sage gradually revealed parts of their past and what happened when they were younger, and how it has shaped their present. Cam was easy to connect with and very grounded. I was able to step into her shoes as her insecurities and fears drove her actions. Dusty was swoon-worthy and I loved how he wasn't embarrassed to let Cam and others know how he felt about her.

It was also nice to see a few of the previous characters pop in without it feeling like a reunion story.

Absolutely a recommended read for readers looking for a sweet and spicy love story!

This was so cute, I just can't help but feel like something was just missing. I think we just got a lot of flashbacks to their relationship rather than seeing their relationship in the present day. But I loved Cam and Dusty was super sweet. Also loved seeing all the Gus and Wes highlights. Thank you so much for sending me an eArc of this book in exchange for my review!

Wild and Wrangled focuses on Camille (Cam) Ashwood, Riley’s mother and Gus Ryder’s co-parent. Cam plans on entering into a loveless marriage in order to financially secure her daughter’s future and to appease her meddling parents. However, her well-laid plans fall apart when the groom doesn’t show up to the wedding, leaving Cam (and Riley) with nowhere to live. With the help of the Ryder family, Cam is able to quickly find a place to stay, but it just so happens to be right beside Dusty Tucker, Cam’s first love who has recently returned to Meadowlark Wyoming to work at Rebel Blue Ranch after years of travel. Quickly realising that she can’t avoid Dusty in such a smalltown, Cam determines that they can be friends but the more time they spend together, the harder it is to ignore their re-emerging feelings for each other.

Wild and Wrangled is the fourth instalment of the Rebel Blue Ranch series; it can probably be read as a standalone, but I would recommend reading the series in order to avoid spoilers. Wild and Wrangled is an opposites attract, forced proximity, second chance romance set in a smalltown. It deals with themes and topics like found family, co-parenting, parent-child relationships, growing up, financial and job stability, self confidence, marriage, love and heartbreak, and parental expectations. The Rebel Blue Ranch series is perfect for fans of smalltown or cowboy romances like those by Elsie Silver, B.K. Borison, Sarah Adams, and Lauren Asher.

Firstly, I love the smalltown and close-knit Rebel Blue Ranch setting and really enjoyed getting to revisit it. Since Wild and Wrangled was the first book in the series that didn’t feature a Ryder sibling as a main character, I felt like it had a bit of a different vibe than the three previous books. That said, I appreciated that we still got to see lots of the meddling Ryder siblings and their significant others throughout Wild and Wrangled. I especially loved that we got to see lots of Cam and Gus’ spunky daughter Riley in this book, including some adorable moments involving embroidery floss friendship bracelets that are so heartwarming! Second chance romances typically aren’t my favourite, but I felt like it made sense for Cam and Dusty’s story. Sage included high school flashbacks interspersed throughout Cam and Dusty’s story; again, I’m usually not a big fan of flashbacks as they break up the action but, in this case, I think that it was done well. My favourite part of the flashbacks were the swoony handwritten notes that Dusty would pass Cam in class!

If you love smalltown second chance romances, then I highly recommend picking up a copy of Wild and Wrangled!

4/5 stars

its a bittersweet moment to write this review because this marks the end of an era; yet for how bitter it is, wild and wrangled was both a beautiful book, and a beautiful way to end the rebel blue ranch series.
what i loved the most about this book was unexpected, it wasn't the funny amos moments, or even the moments from the other characters, it was seeing cam as a mother. as someone who hasn't experienced motherhood, seeing cam describe what it is like to have such devoted love for her child was genuinely one of the most beautiful things i have read in a long time. this book begins with cam trying to rediscover who she is as a person, with a major part of that is seen in her identity as a mother, and how riley helps cam heal in a completely new way.

as for dusty and cam's love story, it was something that i wholeheartedly believe happened for a reason. sage excels at capturing 'wrong time, right person', and how they had to lose each other to love each other. i truly truly adored this book!

tropes:
- cowboy romance
- single mom romance
- second chance romance
- high school sweethearts
- found family
- small town romance
nicknames: ash & angel

wild and wrangled may just be my favourite book in the series because of how much i adored these characters individually. dusty is that classic mama's boy who was raised right and just cannot help but lend a helping hand; he constantly does acts of kindness like taking care of lonely old women, or paying attention to what others need without them asking for help. cam is a woman who is trying to understand who she is, and where she fits in the world; how to be her own person, not an extension of someone else, and how to take charge of her own life.
i think in their own ways, these two characters are so relatable to many people and i am so grateful to have met them. this book was the ending to the rebel blue ranch series that i needed.

my only quarrels with this book was the third act breakup. sometimes, a book just doesn't need one, and while i think the conflict makes sense in cam finding herself, i think it could've involved her parents and dusty helping her through it, rather than it being what it was. with this in mind, my opinion on this book stays strong, and i truly did enjoy the book!

thank you to the dial press for this arc in exchanged for a completely honest review (as always). Oh how i have adored this!!!!

The Rebel Blue Ranch series is one of my favorite places to escape to and I hope Lyla Sage has somewhere else for me to visit now that I've finished "Wild and Wrangled". I thoroughly enjoyed Cam and Dusty's story from start to finish! The pacing of the book kept me focused and interested, and I especially love the author's writing style. I appreciated the dual perspectives throughout the book that brought about the different angles of Cam and Dusty's character development. Their romance is true friends to lovers with all sorts of spice and humor sprinkled throughout.

I had a great time reading this book and, of course, the rest of the series! Lyla Sage is an 'auto buy' author for me and I will absolutely reach for her books in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Random House Publishing Group for an opportunity to read and review this book. All opinions are my own.

I know this has been a popular series, but this is the only book from it that I have read. Well, I listened to it, and I'm glad I did because I was able to speed it up to 1.9x speed. I can't speak for the entire series, but this book felt kind of flat to me. Nothing really happens, there isn't a lot of character development other than the fact that both characters aged, and there was no tension or buildup.
Anyway, I'll give it 2.5 stars, rounded up.

im so sad to leave this series, lyla created a world where it feels like home to everyone including the readers. cam and dustys story was beautiful and raw and real and everything cam truly deserved. i love knowing that all the characters we love are happy and secure and truly living their best lives as the series had ended.
so so beautiful and i loved every minute of it, thank you lyla youre a genius, i love your storytelling and i cant wait to see what you come up with next!

thank you to netgalley for the arc!

A Sweet story of redeeming love between high school sweethearts

I was honored to be given this eARC to read and review by Random House Publishing and the author Lyla Sage via NetGalley. I had not read the first 3 books in the Rebel Blue Ranch Series and boy did I miss out. This story was such a sweet concluding journey of high school sweethearts. As a new to the series reader, the author did an excellent job of explaining the extensive history between the 2 main characters without it feeling like she was rehashing the past. I was thrown into the relationship between Cam and Dusty from the very beginning and I was so ready for the ride.
I highly recommend you give Wild and Wrangled a read (heck give the whole series a read) if you enjoy:
Friends to lovers
Strong independent single mom
MMC protective and caring
Found family
Sassy and smart daughter
Ranch/County vibes
MMC with tattoos
MMC taking care of a little girl (too sweet!)
Dual POV
Dual Timelines
Perfect amount of open door spice

Thank you again Lyla sage for sharing this book with me. I look forward to what stories you have to create next.

I am excited to share a form of this review the week leading up to release day and on release day on the following platforms:

Amazon.com
Barnesandnoble.com
Goodreads
My Bookstagram BooksByTheGarden
My personal facebook and Instagrams

This isn't my favorite in the series (that's book 3) but it's close. It's sweet yet heavy. I love second chance romance and it's done here perfectly.

When Cam's groom doesn't show up on her wedding day, she finds solace in Dusty's company even though they've barely spoken in years. She realizes this may be a bad idea and tries to keep her distance from him but he turns up everywhere. Eventually they both realize they can't fight fate anymore.

I loved everything about this story. I'm sad the series is over.

I liked it. From the moment I met Cam & Dusty, I knew I would live their story. This book moves from past to present, so we're able to view how deep their relationship is. The author does a great job at the story telling l. The characters are liked, the romance is slow burn, and it's steamy.
I highly recommend.

Thank you to The Dial Press for letting me read this book early. All thoughts are my own!!

As a fan of Lyla and the other books in this series, I was so disappointed in this final book. From almost the start, I could tell this wasn’t gonna be a favorite for me, and it just got worse the longer I read it.

I think one of my main issues with it is that Dusty is mentioned in the beginning of this series, but we don’t actually meet him until Lost and Lassoed. We barely see him and Cam interact in that book, which made it harder for me to believe they had chemistry. Lost and Lassoed was so good because we watched Gus and Teddy banter for three books before they finally got together, but the lack of Dusty before this book was not a good thing. Even with Swift and Saddled, I had a difficult time with Ada being a new character. We had to hear all of the character info and world building AGAIN after getting it all in Done and Dusted. Introducing Dusty one book prior to his book made it harder to connect him into this universe and connect him with Cam.

Because I had a hard time seeing chemistry between these characters, I had trouble getting invested in their relationship. The flashbacks to high school helped a lot to build their connection and dynamic, but we were basically just told they were so desperately in love and expected to believe those feelings were still there fifteen years later, with minimal present day interactions to back it up. The way that they interacted, or I guess the lack of interaction, as adults led me to believe that the reason they broke up when they were younger was going to be this huge dramatic conflict, just for it to be basically the opposite. They had one argument, and Cam just up and left Dusty. I understand that they were young, but the way it’s written makes you think Dusty was the problem, when Cam was the one who left.

I don’t really think they spent enough time together as adults to get to know each other again. They spent so much time in this book talking in circles in their heads about why they would or wouldn’t work, so their actual relationship was underdeveloped. Dusty had one one-on-one interaction with Riley and maybe three other interactions with her and decided that he loved her and was ready to co-parent?? I feel like that’s such a huge thing that requires communication with both the child and the parent, just for them to not really talk about it.

Not talking about things seems to be a theme in this book, as we watch plot points be introduced and dropped halfway through the story. There is foundation laid at the beginning of this book for her parents to be a major problem in this story. Every decision Cam makes in the first half of this book is made with her parents at the forefront of it. She was going to get married to secure money for Riley’s future. She worked at a job that her parents deemed correct. After she left Dusty the first time, she went back to follow the path they wanted for her. So, for there to be no real resolution to that and for her parents to just disappear halfway through the book was so frustrating for me. There wasn’t any development with Cam in terms of changing how she lived her life. She was so concerned with making sure Riley would have money in the future, just to not mention it again after she and Dusty confront her parents at that event.

Emmy and Brooks and Wes all kinda disappeared too. I know that there are a lot of other characters, and it would be hard to have them all there constantly, but to have them be so present in the first half and just gone in the second half was wild. We did see Wes again towards the end when he called Cam out on her reaction to Dusty, which leads me to the most unnecessary third act conflict ever.

The third act conflict in this book was so short lived but so extreme for no reason. It came far too late into the story. A third act conflict in the last ten percent of a book makes it extremely hard for me to care whether or not they even resolve the issue. I do understand where Cam was coming from and her reaction to finding out Dusty owned the house she wanted and hadn’t told her. I GET IT!! I just think that she said some really terrible things to Dusty in their fight, just for them to reconcile THE NEXT DAY. I don’t think she even apologized to him either. He gives her the letters he wrote to her over the years, and the book just ends. There’s an epilogue, yes, but the way Cam reacted to that conflict leaves me less than hopeful that they stay together long term.

Overall, this book felt so rushed. It seemed as though Lyla was ready to wrap it up and move on to her next series, and with how quickly this book was released after Lost and Lassoed, I really think that’s what happened. I’m really sad I didn’t like this book as much as I wanted to, but I’m willing to read Lyla’s next series when the time comes.

⭐️: 5/5
🌶️: 4/5

WOW!! 🤩 What a way to end the very heart warming Rebel Blue Ranch series!!

Of course everyone gets their happy ending in this series, but this one definitely hit different! Cam and Dusty were best friends to lovers in high school and the fact that they never truly lost that love is incredible. They were each other’s first and they have always had a special connection. When they broke up after high school, it wasn’t because they didn’t love each other, so there was no real closure. I am so glad that everyone on the ranch has found their person and will continue to raise their families on/close to the ranch made of hopes and dreams!

Marrying for any reason other than love is not worth it!

Thank you Lyla for all of the HEAs and for allowing Riley to have so many people in her circle to love her!!

Thank you Random House Publishing Group for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Will also be posted on Goodreads.

I absolutely love this series and everything Rebel Blue Ranch. I'm so sad this is the last one. Emmy's wedding at the end of the book... *Chefs kiss*. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book early.

As the last book in the Rebel Blue series, we've been waiting for Cam and Dusty's story for awhile now and what a waste of a wait. I was so bored by 60% in that I skipped to the end. There were a couple flaws that didn't draw me into the story. First, I found Cam unrelatable and her waffling quite annoying. She has no female friends as a grown adult, kowtowed to parents who in no way supported her, and was so indecisive I couldn't tell if the character didn't know what she wanted or it was bad writing. In one paragraph Cam is unsure she wants to be with Dusty and in the next she can't stop thinking about him. Truly ridiculous to read. Secondly, there was not enough emotional stakes for me to understand why Dusty fell in love with Cam in the first place and then stayed in love with her. The flashback scenes didn't do enough for me to understand why Dusty loved her so much. It read as bland teenage love story. Dusty in general felt flat as a character, solely existing to be in love with Cam. And third, there was no plot! Barely anything happened in the whole book for the characters to grow and transform, especially for Cam and the drama at the end with the house did not feel like a satisfying enough conflict. This one is a skip.

GoodReads Review:
Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC

Out of the entire Rebel Blue Ranch series, Cam's story has to have been my favorite to read. It was great getting to hear from a character that is not ~technically~ a Ryder, but is one in every way that matters. Camille's internal thinking and external actions are very different from Emmy, Wes, and Gus's. She is incredibly hardworking but zones in on unrealistic expectations and then runs away from any true feelings to avoid hurt and doesn't look back to whats left in the wake. She's a bit reminiscent of Ada from Swift and Saddled.

Dusty was a breath of fresh air in the long line of complicated Ryder love interests. He was head over heels, knew what he wanted and chased after it while also respecting Cam and her boundaries. He was respectful, caring, and a real light to Riley. I wish there was more interaction between the two because their scenes together were precious and were everything to Camille.

Camille was infuriating at times because of her fear to fall all in. Despite this, their love was fun to read and indulge in ! I was left wanting more depth from the two, especially Camille. I feel like their story could've gone deeper and more detailed.

Here's to second chance love and coming full circle !

*I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Overall, I enjoyed this story. I liked the flashbacks to Cam and Dusty's relationship in high school and how all of that filled in the details that have been hinted at throughout the series. They're both great characters and fun to read.

The only nitpick is that we're constantly told that Cam's parents are overbearing a**holes, and we see hints of that. But there's never a real sense of how much they hold over their daughter, and almost no indication of how they feel about Riley. I can certainly deduce that they only want to help Riley as long as Cam does what they want, but the overall "evilness" of these evil rich people is kind of lacking, as far as a credible threat to Cam and Dusty's relationship goes.

But still - a good story and a solid send-off to the series (if indeed this is the end. I wouldn't mind a prequel with Amos and Stella, or something like that).