Guest Review: Love Drunk Cowboy by Carolyn Brown

Judith’s review of Love Drunk Cowboy by Carolyn Brown.

All Austin Lanier wants is to sell her inherited watermelon farm, slip on her stilettos and run back to corporate America. Until the drop dead sexy cowboy next door, Rye O’Donnell, decides he’ll only take the farm if he can get the fiery woman who owns it as part of the deal...

Austin was really out of her element.  She had worked night and day to get where she was in the corporate world–poised to take over her entire section in a very large company when her boss retires in a few months.  Yet she dearly loved her grandmother, a gutsy lady who never knew what the world “old” meant and who lived life to its fullest right up the last.  Now Austin is back in her father’s hometown, presiding over the scattering of her grandmother’s ashes per the will and last instructions.  Her grandmother’s attorney informs her that she has inherited the watermelon farm–nearly 2,000 acres of prime farm land–as well as her grandmother’s prize possession:  her winery.  She had taken two weeks vacation in order to clear out the old house and probably put the farm up for sale.  At least, that had been her mother’s counsel, and yet, now she had been here for several days, met her grandmother’s neighbor who was drop-dead gorgeous, and she wasn’t quite so sure that selling was what she wanted to do.  Yet the fruits of her many years of corporate labor beckoned–what should she do?  Her aunts were at her constantly to give her life to her career.  Her mother hated her dad’s hometown and wanted Austin well and truly away from there.  Austin’s deep attachment for her grandmother seemed to be keeping her unsettled and the responsibility of the well-being of her grandmother’s workers also kept her from making any decision that would end her association with the watermelon farm.  As she remained, she got caught up in the planting and care of the fields, was expected by the workers to continue the traditions that her grandmother had begun, as well as her personal involvement with Rye O’Connell grew.  Her job may be in the big city, but her heart was beginning to feel far more at home in the watermelon fields.

This is not a complicated love story but there are some interesting layers of deep emotion and some strands woven together that make up this novel.  Certainly there is the life-long attachment that Austin had for her grandmother and making Austin her sole heiress indicated that her grandmother loved her dearly.  There seems to be some deeper stuff here, though.  Perhaps Grandma really understood Austin better than she understood herself.  Was she really fulfilled with her corporate, high-paying job?  Was there not some deeper need Austin had ignored that was met when she rode the tractors and performed the traditions of planting, and presided over the precious plants that would become the basis of Grandma’s world-famous watermelon wine?  Austin also discovers the joys of the camaraderie her grandmother’s friends bring into her life, the stimulation of Rye’s rockem-sockem family gatherings, and the addictive blood-heating kisses she and Rye exchanged.  Austin began to understand what her mother never seemed to get:  being married to a career left an awful lot out of life.  Add in what appeared to be some beyond-the-grave conversations from Grandma, some situation manipulation from the dearly departed old lady, and you have a fun read with some serious lessons in living which Austin needed–or at least, her grandmother seemed to think she needed.

I had not read any of Carolyn Brown’s work before this novel probably because my interest in cowboy romance lagged way behind my interest in other historical times and places.  Yet in this sweet and charming story there is so much wit and entertaining repartee–the metaphors and similes are a hoot–that one can only smile or chuckle as the story progresses.  The characters are very sharp–there is a clear contrast between the in-you-face old ladies Austin meets every Friday for ice cream and gossip and her mother and aunts who one gets the feeling are truly prisoners of their ambition.  While Austin’s mother complains about her daughter’s growing involvement with Rye, she is herself is being wooed, wined and dined by a suitor.  I guess what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.

I found this book to be so very entertaining and it was just what I needed to read after a week of lots of stress and commitments that seemed to use up all my time and oxygen.  I was hooked from word one and found the characters to be the kind of people who are real and flawed and beautifully imperfect–just like all the rest of us.  The story wasn’t a complicated love story, but it was one of those gentle and growing relationships that has always warmed the hearts of readers who love romance fiction.  There are times when I really want to sink my teeth into a complicated story that is a challenge from start to finish.  At other times I greatly appreciate a novel like this that is fun and entertaining and fills my reading hours with lots of good vibes.

I give this novel a rating of 4 out of 5.

You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place

This book is available from Sourcebooks Casablanca. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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