First Rodeo: A Novel

by Judith Hennessey

Kate, an attractive, thirty-something, workaholic, single mother, is in the business of pleasing others. At the top of her 'yes' list is her sometimes surly and controlling boss: her father. But when a crisis at work spurs Kate to examine her life, she surprises everyone by taking her young son and heading where few high heels have ever gone: Wyoming, home to more cows than humans. There, at the Prickly Pear Ranch, she meets a young, sexy, bull rider, who's lived a lifetime in just over two decades. He's full of big dreams of training horses, and his passion fuels Kate's dormant dreams of becoming an artist, and sparks fly - and once again, Kate shocks everyone, even herself, and jumps on for the romantic ride of her life. Fast-paced and wildly entertaining, First Rodeo is filled with humorous scenes of city girl gone country, encounters with handsome cowboys, the struggles of the creative process, and a powerful message: the greatest love of all is the love you have for yourself.

• ISBN10: 1943006032
• ISBN13: 9781943006038
• Publish Date: 3 November 2016 (first published 20 September 2016)
• Publish Status: Transferred
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: SparkPress
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Cocktails and Books]

This review was originally posted on Cocktails and Books

Don't let the blurb on this book fool you. If you're picking this book up thinking you're getting a romance between a hot cowboy and a workaholic city girl, you'll be disappointed. FIRST RODEO is the story of Kate, a woman who has troubled relationships with the men in her life: her father, her brother, her ex (husband and boyfriend). When a rumor causes a rift between herself and her father, she decides a three-month leave of absence from work and time at a Wyoming ranch is what she and her five-year-old son need.

I didn't like Kate. At first, I thought it was her current circumstance and I'd like her more as the story developed. But that never happened. She made horrible choices and then often blamed the outcome on someone else rather than looking at herself.

A lot of Kate's issues stem from her relationship with her parents, but at some point (especially given she's a mother) she had to get over that. Instead she that relationship mold the type of men she picked for herself. The one decent guy out of the bunch is the one she cast aside while she let one string her along for years and the other she jumped into a insta-love romance with. All of this left me wondering when she was going to learn? Why, when she was finally taking a break from everything, did she jump into a relationship instead of focusing on figuring herself out and enjoy the hobbies she gave up? It made it hard to believe she was this smart business woman when every other choice she made in her life was so poor.

I would have liked to have enjoyed this one more. But Kate was just too hard to like and made it terribly hard to even hope she found some kind of HEA at the end of the book.