Judith’s review of Cowboys Like Us  (Sons of Chance #6)by Vicki Lewis Thompson

Logan Carswell has just kissed his professional baseball career goodbye. Goodbye dreams, career and future. For now, though, he’s working at the Last Chance Ranch and the town saloon, where sexy bartender Caro Davis is definitely taking his mind off his troubles..
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Caro’s days have been so hectic, she’s forgotten all about the finer aspects of life. Like men. And sex. And really smokin’ hot sex with men like Logan. But when their two worlds collide — and boy, do they ever collide — they both realize that once the gear is off, a cowboy is still a cowboy!

It is no secret that I am going through my “cowboy” phase right now and really enjoying lots of different kinds of Western romance fiction as well as encountering some authors previously unknown to me.  This is the second novel by this author that I have read and I continue to enjoy her writing style, the care she takes to research her work well, and just an overeall sense that she knows her subject well.

In a world where most of us feel overwhelmed on a regular basis and where some of us may have experienced crises of significant proportion is recent years, this story may resonate in a way that might not have been true in years past.  It is a tale about two people who are really overwhelmed by life, to the extent that both are in danger of losing their sense of themselves.  Logan is “stuck” in a world of disappointment, crushed dreams, and worry over the future.  He is a young man who has already begun feeling old and the zest of life that should be coursing through his veins is most certainly missing.  Caro, too, is simply overburdened and over-committed with the need to support herself, the demands emotionally of a grandmother who she loves dearly but who is just not accepting that the time has come for her to give up her huge house (which is too much for her maintain) and move into a retirement facility.  As if the emotional demands are not enough, Grandma is on the phone whenever she perceives that Caro is late or has not paid sufficient attention to her.  In the midst of their personal turmoil, Logan and Caro find each other and begin an affair that both know will be short-lived but which seems to meet needs in each of them they have long ignored.

While there is certainly lots of hot loving in its pages, I found this novel to be very compelling as it drew me into the struggles both Logan and Caro were experiencing and feeling like a cheerleader on the sidelines as I was hoping that each of them would manage a way to find a more permanent basis for remaining together.  They were just so darn good together and they both felt so linked to one another.  Yet there was always the spectre of Logan returning to Chicago to try to find his way beyond a failed pro baseball career and Caro to gain some balance in her life–living for herself in proportion to living for her Grandmother.

Vickie Lewis Thompson is certainly a romance author of note and the series of which this novel is a part has been really fun for cowboy romance fans.  She is just so good at what she does!  And while I am the last person to decry the simple love story of boy-meets-girl, I am especially fond of any romance that has just a bit of anxiety and crisis within its boundaries.  Add to that the aspect of “long distance” as is the case here, and the reader is kept wondering how these two lovers are going to work this all out.  It makes for a very satisfying reading experience and one that makes it worthwhile to spend time indulging that old love of reading.  I don’t think any true fan of romance fiction will feel that reading this book will ever be a waste of time and energy.

I give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5.

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

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