Review: Three River Ranch – Roxanne Snopek

Three River Ranch by Roxanne Snopek
Published by Entangled Publishing on 25 August 2012
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 171
Source: Netgalley
Buy on Amazon

Three River Ranch by Roxanne Snopek is a sweet contemporary romance staged on a beautiful ranch. Aurora and Carson are both very tentative at first, they have both been burned before and tend to try to keep away from the fire. Aurora is a woman who is used to having to work hard, and her actual profession made me admire her from the very start. Add to that the fact that her fiance asked her if it was his when she told him she was pregnant, then he cheated on her before leaving her. To get away from all of that, Rory decided to leave her job and sold her part of her house to her ex, while renting a house sight-unseen on a ranch in Chinook.Carson is passionate about his work, which is to save Mustangs (the horse, not the car!) that live in the wild, and who are being shamelessly killed by ranchers both in Canada and in the US. He thinks he will finally be able to get the family ranch to reach his dreams, but his recently deceased father had other plans! There are some outrageous stipulations to the will and to the trust fund that is left to Carson and his brother.

 

*I received an ARC of Three River Ranch from Entangled Publishing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

And so, the cute story of Three River Ranch begins, with two wonderful people who have been deeply hurt by those they loved the most, and neither of them thinks it will ever be time for a new love. On top of that, their first meeting is far from ideal, since Rory’s real-estate agent just leaves her in front of a broken-down house, and she realizes it might not even be possible to live there. Then, Carson arrives, extremely surprised to see a car on his property. Sparks fly, and even if he won’t admit it, Carson finds this pregnant beauty tantalizing. Rory can’t stop blushing, and thinking about how that broad chest would look without the shirt that’s covering it now.

The relationship between Carson and Rory build slowly, and they are both pretty self-conscious and afraid of love and relationships. They work on their own issues, and form a friendship even if both of them truly want more, both from each other and from life. Both are very strong and confident when it comes to their work, so it is really funny to see how they need more confidence in their personal lives. However, it is very easy to believe both characters, their past relationships have shaped who they are today, and I would be afraid of love, too, if I had been through what either of them has been through.

The writing is very fluid, and I was caught up in the story from the beginning. The characters are likeable, and I could completely get both Carson and Rory, and they felt very real. The plot was not complicated, even if it unfolded a little differently from what I thought when I read the blurb, and I will certainly read more books by Ms. Snopek, since I really enjoyed this one.

Instantly, the dog stopped hovering and contented itself with throwing filthy looks and the occasional guttural growl in Carson’s direction. It was a guard dog crossed with a dust mop.

Her lips moved softly, a low litany of meaningless words flowing between them, enveloping them with calm. It was like poetry, Carson thought, or a lullaby.

The dog gazed back mournfully, as if grieving her owner’s self-deception. Okay, so she’d felt some sort of primal attraction to the man. But it didn’t mean anything. it was just an instinct to hunker down next to a strong caveman, for the protection of the cave-baby.

 

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