Reviewed by Sarina
TITLE: Cattle Valley Days
SERIES: Cattle Valley #12
AUTHOR: Carol Lynne
PUBLISHER: Pride Publishing
LENGTH: 138 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 27, 2009
BLURB:
Saddle up, Cattle Valley residents. It’s time for the annual Cattle Valley Days, which means one thing. Cowboys, lots and lots of chapped cowboy butts.
We’ll be checking in with some of your favorite couples from the past as well as meeting a few new residents. Our old friends from the Good-Time Boys will also be dropping by for the annual rodeo festivities.
So slap your spurs in and get ready for a wild ride!
Reader Advisory: This book is best read in sequence as part of a series
REVIEW:
Alright, so…based on the blurb for this one, I was expecting something much different from what I actually got. I mean, I was expecting to get a good look at a lot of my favorite pairings from the series so far instead of the small glimpses you usually get at either new or existing couples over the course of a usual story. I…did not. What the blurb fails to express is that this is another Nate, Ryan and Rio story with a heavy focus on Nate; you only get to see other people like you normally would in any other Cattle Valley story. So, if this pairing isn’t your cup of tea, aside from the ending, you probably won’t enjoy this one as much.
So, Nate is trying to settle into his new job as Mayor of Cattle Valley and his first big project is getting everything set up and ready to go for the annual Cattle Valley Days Rodeo festival and Dance. Determined to make everything perfect and unprepared for the shear amount of work involved, he’s been putting in longer and longer hours at the office and his relationship with his two men is starting to suffer. The fights and stress are now getting to Rio who is having flashbacks to his own childhood and his health is beginning to suffer as a result and Ryan is struggling with his place in their relationship now that he’s no longer the ‘big man’ his other two partners look up to. Needless to say, things are a mess and none of these three are really unbending enough to fix things properly. When they do finally straighten themselves out, tragedy strikes and no one is left prepared to deal with the aftermath.
I liked the story in general; Nate won’t ever by my favorite character and after he kind of intruded on the last book, I wasn’t entirely thrilled to see him starring in this one. Despite my misgivings, however, I did enjoy the book. The ending was particularly powerful and I wasn’t expecting that level of tragedy to strike the town; people will be dealing with the aftermath for a while, I think. Even if you don’t care for this group of men, the ending was totally worth the read and I do like how it settled Nate into his role of Mayor kind of naturally.
RATING: 
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