Story Description:
Thomas
Nelson|October 2, 2012|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-1-59554-803-0
Only one pair of
boots and the cowboy wearing them can get Annie out of the mess she’s in.
Annie Wilkerson is
Moose Creek’s premiere horse trainer and equine columnist for Montana
Living. Money is tight as she tries to
put her kid-sister through college and provide for her young nephew. When Annie’s column is cancelled, she’s given
first shot at a new lovelorn column – and she can’t afford to turn it
down. Only problem is…Annie’s never been
in love.
Always
resourceful, she reluctantly strikes a deal with the town’s smooth-talking ladies
man, Dylan Taylor: She’ll work his ailing horse, Braveheart, if he’ll help her
answer the reader letters.
Working closely
with Dylan is harder than Annie imagined, and she quickly realizes she may have
misjudged him. But her unwavering
conviction that cowboys are nothing but trouble has kept her heart safe for
years. And she can’t risk getting hurt
now.
The more Annie
tries to control things, the more they fall apart. Her feelings are spinning out of control, and
her sister’s antics are making life increasingly more difficult. Annie knows she needs to turn the reins over
to God, but surrender has never come easily.
When Dylan reveals
his feelings for her, Annie doesn’t know what to trust – her head or
heart. The trouble with this cowboy is
that he might just be exactly what she needs.
“…a story filled
with romantic tension. Hunter’s
well-developed characters and plot twists make for a delightful and
inspirational journey.” – Publishers Weekly
My Review:
Twenty-four-year-old
Annie Wilkerson was sitting in the Chuckwagon restaurant waiting for her date,
John Oakley to show up, he was a banker.
While she waited in swaggered Dylan Taylor, the town’s smooth talking
ladies man. Dylan immediately struck up
a conversation with Annie who wasn’t the least bit interested in him. After some kidding and snide comments back
and forth, Dylan asked Annie if she’d come and take a look at his best horse,
Braveheart, who’d just been diagnosed with moon blindness. Annie quickly declined reminding Dylan she wasn’t
a vet, only a premiere horse trainer and offered to provide him with the name
of someone who could work with Braveheart but he declined saying he wanted
Annie to take a look at him. Annie was a
sucker for a horse in distress. Just
then, John walked in and the conversation was over but not before Dylan said: “Annie,
talk to you Monday”, then pointed at her while winking and said: “And don’t
think I’ve given up.”
Later that evening,
Annie stopped into the Mocha House to get her coffee expecting to see her twenty-year-old
sister, Sierra standing behind the counter but instead found the owner, Tina
Lewis. Tina explained that she’d had to
fire, Sierra two days before for not showing up for shifts and for sometimes
bringing her four-year-old son, Ryder with her.
Annie was instantly worried as she and Sierra lived together and counted
on her part-time income to pay for household expenses. She immediately went home to face, Sierra who’d
already lost two previous jobs. Sierra
was attending school part-time to get her journalism degree so she could take
over Annie’s column in the magazine that their grandfather had started and
Sierra only had one semester left of school.
Just then, Annie’s cell phone rang and it was, Midge from the magazine
calling Annie to tell her they’ve been forced to do some “restructuring” and
that Annie’s column was being cut as the number of folks writing in to ask
questions about horses and training had drastically decreased. The biggest contributor to this was the fact
that people now just used Google and Wikipedia to ascertain responses to their
questions. This news hit Annie hard as,
Sierra was supposed to graduate with her journalism degree and then take over
the column in Montana Living and shifting the column to a topic better suited
to her. Now she and Sierra had lost
another form of their income. Then Midge
offered her an alternate job with writing a “lovelorn column.” Midge went on to say the pay was the same,
and they’d call it ”Ask Annie.” There
was no way she could turn down the offer as they needed the money, so she
graciously accepted and thanked Midge.
After the phone call ended, Annie was extremely worried about how she
was going to respond to questions about love and relationships when she herself
had never been in love.
Sunday morning
arrived and for the third week in a row, Sierra was refusing to attend church
with Annie. She didn’t understand,
Sierra’s sudden lack of interest in church but knew it was “symptomatic of a
faltering spiritual walk,” but didn’t know what had caused it. Annie missed the days that, Sierra was full
of godly passion and if anything, “she should be seeking God’s help now with no
job in sight.”
After church,
Sierra sat down with Annie to help her with a response to her first “Ask Annie
question for the magazine. Sierra’s
answer was simple – tell the woman to give the guy the boot because he cheated
on her – simple. Annie, however, felt
that was wrong since they had a child together and weren’t married. Sierra said giving him the boot now would
save her from divorcing him later if they married, but Annie said “you know how
God hates divorce.” Annie just didn’t have
the heart to advise a woman to break-up with the father of her child and what
if she steered the woman wrong? Annie
decided she needed time to pray about it, as the column wasn’t due until
Wednesday.
The following day
cowboy, Dylan Taylor showed up at Annie’s door once again pleading with her to
come and help his horse, Braveheart. The
last thing Annie wanted to do was spend time with Dylan but his begging and
pleading was breaking her down and she hated to see the poor, Braveheart suffer
anymore. Dylan said he would pay her
whatever she wanted although he didn’t really have the money to be making that
kind of offer. Annie thought for a few minutes
then it suddenly dawned on her. She told
Dylan she’d do it on one condition, that he help her with her new love and
relationship column since Dylan had had so much experience. She said it would be a straight trade with
equal time and Dylan readily accepted her offer. Annie felt confident she could handle Dylan’s
“flirtatious ways just fine” but also knew deep down in her heart she’d just “signed
up for all kinds of trouble.” They would
meet every Thursday for Annie to work with Braveheart and when she was done
they’d work on her responses for the column.
As the story
continues, Annie tries hard to mother, Sierra along what she thinks is the
correct path her life should take. Annie
continues to have this good-bad, love-hate relationship with Dylan but the
story turns into the most sweet, loving, humbling, romantic, ingratiating tale
I’ve ever read. And most of all, there
is a hugely unexpected twist in Sierra’s life that is going to knock your socks
off!
The Trouble With Cowboys, I think,
leaves us with the message that no matter what we think our lives should be, or
what we want or feel we need, or no matter how much praying, asking, begging of
God we do to provide us with what we ask for, it just isn’t going to
happen. God is in the driver’s seat in
each of our lives and it is His will that thy will be done.
I totally fell in
love with the very well developed characters in this novel and with the story
itself and plan to read it again as I enjoyed it that much. I read it in one sitting and I’ll definitely
be passing the title of this one onto all my friends. Excellent!!
I’d also like to
thank Thomas Nelson for providing me with a copy of this book. The comments expressed in the “My Review”
section above are purely my own and I received no monies or any form of compensation
whatsoever for those comments.
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