This is book 5 in the Cowboy seal series and it's a quick holiday read. Tiffany and Rowdy are featured in this story and has Tiffany off the rodeo circuit because she's expecting and Rowdy trying to come to term with the idea of becoming a father.

I found this was an interesting topic to be in a romance novel. This isn’t usually what you find in a romance story. There was a fair amount of chemistry between Rowdy and Tiffany. I liked how caring Tiffany is and how strong she was in making such hard choices. I wasn’t the hugest fan of how Rowdy was when he found out and how about Tiffany and the baby. He was too pushy for my liking. I did eventually warm up to them as a couple but that was definitely towards the end of the book. This book didn’t immediately grab my attention but I did warm up to the story. Wasn’t a favourite but was an ok read.

This is a quick Christmas read that will have you laughing one minute and in tears the next. A good addition to your pile of Christmas books you intend to read.

3.5 stars

This one is tough for me to grade. I found Tiffany too snarky, and I didn't have much sympathy for her. Rowdy also ran hot or cold for me. When he learns that a random bar hookup left Tiffany pregnant, he's determined to do the "right" thing. He wants to marry her and provide for his son. Tiffany, who hasn't heard from Rowdy for eight months, is not in a good place. Due to her father's criminal activity, she and her mother have lost everything, and Tiffany is trying to provide for her grandmother, her mother, and herself. There is no way a baby will fit in the budget. So she did the right thing and arranged for the adoption of her baby. When Rowdy finds out, he blows a gasket.

It's hard to feel bad for either character, because they are both responsible for their current predicament. Rowdy has a lot of growing up to do. Tiffany, understandable, doesn't trust anyone, after being let down by the two men in her life who were supposed to be there for her. After her father's legal troubles are known, her successful husband promptly serves her with divorce papers to keep his name from being tainted. Now, instead of shopping, gossiping, and working on charitable endeavors, Tiffany has to earn a living for the first time in her life. Part of my disconnect with the characters was the lack of my ability to relate to either of them. I wanted them to do the right thing, but I honestly wasn't what the right thing was.

I liked the writing style, with its snarky dialog and quirky supporting cast. I'm not sure that Rowdy and Tiffany will have a HEA, though, because they both had so much growing up to do.

This is the first novel I've read by Ms. Altom, and she pretty much had me at "Cowboy SEAL's" in the title, so I thought this novel would be right up my alley, but, in the end, I could only give it 2 stars.

On the night before Easter, inebriated, 30-something Navy SEAL, Rowdy Jones, picks up an equally inebriated hot blonde in a tight white dress at a bar and takes her to the motel next door for a night of hot sex without even asking for her name, or making sure his condom is in place.

On the night before Halloween, Rowdy finally has access to 6 months of his cell phone messages, having accidentally dropped his cell phone down a well in Afghanistan, and is listening to his backlog of voice mail in reverse order. When he gets to the first and final one, it's apparent that at some point during their wild night, they did at least exchange first names, because it's from the gal he bedded, who still doesn't give her name, and she was calling to tell him that she's pregnant, it's a boy, he's the father and she's giving the baby up for adoption, and midway through Chapter One, we finally learn her name, Tiffany Lawson. She's a down-on-her-luck, ex-rodeo performer and former Texas debutante, now living with her mother and her paternal grandmother, both of whom are more than a tad loony and delusional, in a ramshackle house in Maple Springs, North Dakota and she's their sole support, trying to earn a living and keep a roof over their heads by working as a realtor. She already has an ex-husband, her once-wealthy father is in prison, and she is livid that her attempts to let the baby daddy know about her condition have gone unanswered for six months.

From the minute Rowdy learns about the pregnancy, he's ready to do the right thing, and returns to his parents home in Maple Springs, quite a coincidence, and finally manages to track down Tiffany at her office. She is none to happy to see him and can you blame her? She's as snarky as she can be when he shows up and informs her that there is no way that he's going to let her give up his child for adoption. Although I realize that the author is tackling a very tough subject, what to do with an unwanted pregnancy after a drunken one-night stand, from this point on, the novel becomes a battle of wills between two really immature adults who waffle back and forth between wanting to keep the baby and thinking that giving him up to a lovely, well-off married couple might give him a chance at a better, more stable life. After all, Rowdy is a Navy SEAL and often deployed on risky missions and Tiffany is ill-equipped to be a full-time mom. Her mother still lives in a dream world where she's the belle of Austin, Texas and dresses the part, and her grandmother took a second mortgage on her home to pay for her son's, known only as Big Daddy, legal expenses, and oh, by the way, she hasn't made a mortgage payment in a couple of months.

The subject of the novel is a good one, giving up a baby is a serious subject, but I wish it had been handled with the gravity it deserves. My problem with this novel is that this cast of characters is utterly ridiculous and immature. Tiffany still craves the life she led as a wealthy debutante, the shoes, the clothes, the make-up, manicures and pedicures. Rowdy, while trying to act like a responsible father-to-be really doesn't know much about the woman who's about to bear his child, and mainly thinks about getting her back into bed. While he shows a bit more maturity than Tiffany, he waffles back and forth as well. To make him seem even less responsible, when he's sent on yet another covert mission, he doesn't even bother to let Tiffany know about it, leaving her wondering what's become of him. It doesn't help that he loses a close friend on that mission and at his friend's funeral suddenly decides that adoption may be the way to go after all, because he can't stand the sight of his buddy's devastated wife and 4 children.

My problems with this novel are numerous. First, I think the snark and situations with Tiffany's mother and grandmother are meant to be funny--they aren't. While I love snarky dialogue, it just didn't come off as I believe the author intended, instead it accentuated the immaturity of the characters, who showed absolutely no character development whatsoever. The should we/shouldn't we waffling became more and more annoying and tiresome. While there is an HEA ending, by the time it arrived I couldn't have cared less and was happy to see the last of these incredibly irritating, immature characters.