Review: Kiss Me Cowboy

Kiss Me Cowboy by Heather Slade
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If I’m being completely honest, Kiss Me Cowboy was more of a two-point-five star read for me. I know many people seemed to enjoy this one, but I had quite a bit of trouble with it. I believe, however, that a lot of my trouble is due to this being book three in the Cowboys of Crested Butte series. I have not read the prior books in the series and there was so much drama going on in this book that I did not understand, thus I had difficulty getting into certain elements of the storyline. This is my own fault, and due to that, I opted to round up to three stars.

I find most romance series, where there is a different couple in each book, allow you to read each book as a standalone novel. It’s usually best to read them in order for the full effect, but you can usually wrap your head around everything without needing to read all of the prior books. It was this belief that had me diving into Kiss Me Cowboy without reading the prior books. I knew this to be a romance between two characters, a romance that did not appear in the prior books. Thus, I assumed it would be okay to jump in without having read the prior books. However, I quickly found out this is one of those books where it is best to read the entire series.

There was a lot of stopping and starting as I tried to get into this story, constant picking it up and putting it down. There was a lot going on in this one, and not all of it was related to the two main characters. I do not mind reading snippets of other characters – in fact, I enjoy such a thing when I’ve been following a series for a long time – yet I feel as though things were somewhat unequal at certain points in this book. There were plenty of times where I did not feel as though I was reading a romance novel, where I did not feel as though this book was focused upon the relationship forming between two people. I felt like I was reading a soap opera, bouncing around the drama between the characters. Whilst I do love a good drama filled book, I felt as though this was just a bit too much for me. I may have enjoyed it more if I had understood everything, but even then I’m unsure – I like to think my capability of dealing with drama is quite high, yet I fear this would have pushed it to a limit.

Aside from the amount of drama in the book, I found it difficult to connect with any of the characters and the events that played out. The story itself had the possibility of being really interesting – once I was about half way through, I found I was enjoying some of the elements more than I’d imagined possible when I started the book – but I did not connect with anyone or anything. I kept reading, wanting to know how things played out (wanting to make sure I had worked things out correctly), but I never felt the emotions I should have felt when reading a book where so much happened. If I’d been able to connect with the characters I’m sure I would have enjoyed this more, instead I spent the whole book feeling like an outsider looking in – as I said, it felt like a soap opera where I could appreciate the events but I never really felt anything.

I may go and give the prior books – Fall for Me and Dance with me – a read, to see if I enjoy them more. Whilst a part of me is willing to give them a try – at least the first one – it’s not a task at the top of my to-do list. I may get around to it, I may not – it remains to be seen.

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