Judith’s review of Mistletoe Cowboy (Spikes & Spurs #5) by Carolyn Brown
Commitment! It made Sage run the other way. It made Creed shudder. But Sage’s granny, the Widow Presley, was determined to get her granddaughter a cowboy for Christmas. And who better than Creed, the man interested in purchasing the widow’s Rockin’ C Ranch?
The fact that a three-day blizzard was blowing in just made things all the better. A person can’t run from commitment when they’re snowed in, now can they?
Those readers who have read the books in this wonderful American cowboy series will find this just a bit different. The previous four novels brought familiar characters into the story is much greater measure than what is the case here. Our hero, Creed Riley, is the younger brother of Ace Riley, main character featured in Book 4: One Hot Cowboy Wedding. Creed is a man seeking his own place, somewhere that will allow him to spread his own wings and make his own mark in the world, leave his own footprint on the planet unhampered by his very large and sometimes overbearing family. As much as he loves them, he needs to make his own space and the Rockin’ C is where he has had a sense of “place” ever since he first walked onto the front porch. His conditional agreement with the owner contains the caveat that the owner’s granddaughter, accomplished and successful painter Sage Presley, has a home for the length of her life. What Creed didn’t sign on for was the storm of protest and upset he encountered and had to endure for the three days that a blizzard encased them in mountains of snow, or the three weeks she took to work through her feelings about losing the ranch to someone who wasn’t “family.”
Yet this book is really about two people who really needed to get unstuck from the past. For Sage it was that overwhelming sense of being abandoned, continually and painfully, by almost everyone who was important to her. She still felt deeply the loss of her parents and now her grandmother was “leaving” her to move away and live with her great-aunt, both old ladies who now needed each other’s strength. She nearly always refused a pet because they inevitably died and “abandoned” her. Yet in this story of very quiet holiday “miracles,” Sage and Creed are brought together, made to get to know one another, had to face the realities of life without Sage’s grandmother, and each was made to face their own fears of the future as time and life challenged them to see the future through a different set of lenses.
This is a story about love and kindness, caring and confusion, regret and redemption. It is a story about the little things that caught Sage’s eye–gifts from those she called her “painting gods” or PG’s, ideas and shapes and vignettes that she saw as paintings she could reproduce and which became her new “Mistletoe Series.” It all began as a funny set of seeming coincidences: a piece of mistletoe got carried in on Creed’s shoulder or his gloves or somewhere on his person, every time he came in out of the snow after doing chores. Slowly but surely even Creed began to notice some of these quiet but mysterious “little things” that began to translate into some very “heavy” life lessons, situations that forced Sage and then Creed to look inside themselves. And don’t be surprised that the sexual tension between these two also had an important place in bringing these two adversaries together, not just physically but emotionally and intellectually as well.
It’s another wonderful Carolyn Brown novel full of color and caring and that sense of continuity that is what makes life interesting and fascinating in spite of the negative and the challenges that can often overwhelm and defeat. Written with the verve and sense of liveliness that marks all her books, this novel is the kind that is hard to put down and which continues the series but with that sense of branching out and journeying into paths that take families and persons in new directions. Ms Brown is expert in helping the reader to enter into the sense of being a part of what’s happening in the story, of being not just a witness to the story’s action but someone who is intrinsically engaged in the lives of these characters. It’s a wonderful reading experience as it engages the mind and emotions throughout. It is a book that simply begs to be enjoyed.
I give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5
The Series:
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. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.
Aww, it does sound like a sweet story! i’ll try to pick it up 😀
I actually was working on the third book and had to stop for a while. Now after reading this review, I know I have to start reading again, move on the fourth, while waiting this title to arrive. Thank you! ^^
Love Carolyn’s books – have been waiting for this one.