This book is supposed to be the start to a new series. You need to read the other series first. I was lost and confused a bunch of times. This is why I gave it 3 stars. The story has promise and the characters are likeable. I didn't feel connected to them as I should have. I feel like the connection was in the previous series.
If you've read the previous series, My Cowboy Promises, you'll probably love this new series.

There is so much going on in this book that at times I had to go back and reread the last part that I just read to make sure I was reading it correctly. Andi Chandelier is still mad at Malcolm Colton for a whole slew of reasons. One she blames him for not looking at her when she was younger, and he was already over 21 and she was 16. Two she gets pregnant by some other rodeo cowboy and she decides to marry her guy boyfriend so her son has a father, but now years later he has two. Now Malcom an attorney and has taken over his father practice, she is mad about that because he has money, and the kicker he is trying to get her to go out to her father’s ranch. How in the world can that man still be talking to her father? Oh and by the way he is in love with her but can’t mustard up the gumption to tell her when they are together. He decides to help out her singing career but when she gets to the persons home you are set into another set of problems like the one she has at her own home. You are constantly jumping back and forth from one situation to the next and just when you think you are going to settle with the main characters you jump again to someone else. The extra characters are all good and their stories are good as well but for me there is just too much going on. Maybe for others it’s not so rough.

Andi lives with her son and husband, and her husband’s boyfriend. It’s a sticky situation but it works for them…until it doesn’t. Andi always had a crush on Malcolm but he’s 7 years older than her. When she was 15 she tried to get him to sleep with her and when he turned her down flat (of course, she was way too young) she went and slept with someone else trying to spite Malcolm. She ended up pregnant and then she married her gay best friend. That was fine until he found a love of his own.

Now Andi is in a band trying to make it as a singer but it’s not really working. When a big Nashville star asks her to head to Georgia with him to record some stuff she’s thrilled. That is until she realizes Malcolm is there too. The situation in Georgia is fraught with tension and Andi is soon back home, but not until she sleeps with Malcolm. Now she has to figure out what she wants in life and who she wants to be with.

While I’ve loved almost everything that Maxfield has written in the m/m genre, this one was just ok for me. I found Andi to be super indecisive, as a normal 21-year-old is (at least the ones I know). She was a good mother and she wanted what was best for her family, but the girl changed her mind about a thousand times during the course of the book. She was also constantly thinking or spouting quotes and clichés and that got really old, really fast.

Malcolm apparently had a thing for Andi when she was just 12 years old. I found that creepy as he would have been 19 at the time. Luckily he didn’t act on his feelings until she was 21. My problem with their relationship was that it was never discussed. They had been good friends but then hadn’t seen each other for years (she was still mad at him for turning down sex with her when she was just 15) but after they sleep together they’re just…together. No talking about what it means, they just…are. I guess I expected more as that’s what Maxfield normally gives us. She does emotion so very well but this book didn’t have a whole lot of it and that was disappointing.

Overall it was an ok book but not one I can really recommend.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Favorite Quote:
“How come your kissing mommy?”

“I love her…is that okay?”

“Nuh-uh. She’s married to my daddy.”
“But your daddy kisses Dr. Declan, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, but that’s different. They’re both boys […] See, if mommy gets someone new, it has to be a girl, that’s all. Sorry man, I don’t make the rules.”

An impulsive decision made years ago left Andi married and a mother at a young age. Older and wiser, Andi finally has the chance to leave the small town of Bitterroot, TX and pursue her dreams of becoming a singer, but unless she deals with the past and her own mistakes, she will never get past the town limits.

Malcolm Colton still harbors guilt over what happened. He never meant to hurt Andi but she was too young for him back then and by the time he saw what she was doing, it was too late. When he is hired by her father, any chance he might have had is lost. This time though, things will be different. He’s going to make sure of it. He and Andi are older now and he’s ready to explore the attraction between them, but he’s going to need a lot more than luck and love if he wants Andi to give him a second chance.

Honky Tonk Hellion is the first in a new series by Z.A. Maxfield. A spin off the My Cowboy series, this book continues the story from My Cowboy Promises, branching out and adding to it. Though you don’t have to read My Cowboy Promises to appreciate what is happening in here, I would recommend it. There is a lot of unspoken tension and various dynamics playing out that may not make sense if you aren’t privy to where they are coming from. The first person dual narrative doesn’t help. Maxfield does use Andi and Malcolm’s memories to give readers a low key recap but at times I couldn’t help but feel I was missing things.

Emotionally bittersweet with indulgent flashes of charm, wit, and sorrow, this second chance romance explores all the different definitions of love, family, and relationships. Two families in similar circumstances discover the will to move past the comfortable and secure to forge their own destinies-some with blessing and some with anger. Forgiveness and redemption cast a long shadow as Andi, Malcolm, Truman, and Lorelai all learn that sometimes in order to move forward, you have to be strong enough to let go of the past. Though a romance at heart, Maxfield engages in some social commentary as she speaks of the homophobia that is embedded in this little southern town and those who choose to fight against it.

“In Mr. Evans’s hierarchy of crime, lighting people’s porches on fire beats sexual shenanigans, and he’s prepared to ‘defend our right to be freaks anyway, because we’re (gosh danged) Americans, is what.'”

Though it took me a little while to connect with the flow of the narrative, I was soon caught up in this soap opera style drama and falling in love with these delightfully flawed characters. Andi Chandler-Dent hasn’t had it easy. Abandoned by her mother and raised by her tyrannical father, she looked for love in all the wrong places and soon found herself a mother at age 15. When she tells the father, he insists she get rid of it. Instead, she marries her best friend, Ryder, who is gay, declares him the legal father, and they raise baby Jonas together. Ryder eventually falls in love with the local doctor, Declan, and soon all of them pile into Declan’s home as one big happy family.

“I wave, and my odd little family waves back from the porch. My husband, his boyfriend, our son, and the dragon, Marge.”

I loved Andi. She is a fantastic combination of vulnerability and strength with a hefty dose of mother’s wisdom. Condemned by the town for her wild ways, her marriage to Ryder and the addition of Declan to their little family has marked them all for the worse. Ready to start the career she put off to be a mother, she is torn between her wants and her needs. Malcolm re-entering her life is an added pressure she doesn’t want. She loved him for so long but his repeated rejections created a wall between them that she is not ready to knock down.

I was prepared to hate Malcolm but you really can’t. He tries so hard to make up for what he did in the past though technically, he really didn’t do anything wrong. A former and really bad rodeo rider turned lawyer, he did what he felt was right by Andi so many years ago. Their age difference (22 to her 15) was not acceptable and he knew it. He never expected her to go after one of his best friends. He also never expected that friend to sleep with her so he blames himself for not stopping her. Add in his work for her dad and he can’t seem to catch a break with her. In an effort to make up for all the pain he has caused her, he arranges for his best friend, Truman King, the famous country singer, to come hear her sing.

“I keep getting involved in Andi Chandler’s affairs from the wrong side of the looking glass and now…I can’t stop.”

As Malcolm and Andi begin to work on healing, Maxfield introduces us to Kevin Braeden and his wife, Laurleen. This is really where the story really picks up and gets interesting. So much tension and anger in this little family. Kevin loves Truman and Laurleen and they all live together but he refuses to let them out of the closet. Andi’s arrival in Atlanta to record with Truman forces them all, her included, to take a good hard look at their lives and hearts. While Maxfield doesn’t really confirm or deny, there are clues towards emotional and physical abuse on Kevin’s end towards both Truman and Laurleen. I loved that Andi speaks her mind and doesn’t allow any of them to intimidate her.

“Own your shit. Take pride in it. Take care of it or you will lose it.”

“I’m supposed to care what because some entitled strangers want to know everything about my-”

“You’re supposed to care because you’re hurting two people who love you.”

The ending is a heartfelt affair as the very foundations of these two families are rocked by change. Difficult choices are made and new paths forged. Familiar faces from books four and five of The Cowboys series drift in and we are able to see how their lives are going. We are left with the knowledge that Andi and Malcolm have found their HFN and I can’t wait to see what Maxfield has in store for Laurleen, Truman, and Kevin.

Grade: B

Maxfield's "Honky Tonk Hellion" is an ode to Love in all its glory - parenthood, friendship, straight, gay, ménage, etc. Though the novel is a standalone, I was glad for the rich context provided by reading "My Cowboy Promises" beforehand.

With seven important characters, it was interesting to see if "Honky Tonk Hellion" could deliver. Boy, does it, offering a HFN ending to what will apparently be a spin-off. I was left marveling. How could Maxfield create scenes to advance the plot, while giving every character the chance to learn from his/her experiences?

At fifteen, after Andi was rejected by her older crush, Malcom, she slept with a second boy, was impregnated, and decided to married her gay best friend, Ryan, consensually naming him the father. Six years later, they are still married, though Ryan is openly in a relationship with Declan. Andi and their son live with the men. While Andi has long been the town "sinner", now Ryan and Declan join her in their community's contempt, which is escalating towards danger.

It was painful for Malcom to reject Andi because of her youth; he adored her. He's waited for her to turn 21, his love swelling, while she has nursed a resentment. Malcom has used the period to become lawyer, hired by both Andi's father, to manage their farm, and a country singer, Truman, to manage his career. Aware Andi is a talented singer, Malcom arranges for Truman to hear Andi sing.

Truman longs to work with Andi, but his band has its own complications. His bandmate and lover, Kevin, is married to Laureen. The three live on a ranch, happily sharing Kevin, though Kevin insists upon keeping their ménage a secret. When Andi is invited to visit, everyone must question his/her heart.

I love when a writer is true to her characters. Each relationship gets equal respect, scenes to highlight facets of their traits. Plot tension builds as readers can foretell upcoming conflicts. Yet the folks' interactions force consequences natural to their personalities.

Maxfield is a skilled communicator. In a couple of sentences, she communicates Andi's maturation. "My dad made some promises to me, and now he's broken them. How soon before I break all mine?" she asks herself, demonstrating true empathy.

Then again, ZA's throw-away observations feel like a cool night, toasty-warm under Grandma's home-made down quilt. For example, carrying her growing son, Andi thinks, "It's like toting a marshmallow that weighs forty pounds. Plus, he smells like boy soup."

Maxfield always injects humor. Musing to herself about the joys of motherhood, Andi also notes, "Only every so often I discover unexpected, negative side effects, like using spit to wipe dirt off total strangers."

There's plenty of social commentary to make readers think. Of their conservative neighbor, Andi thinks to herself, "In Mr. Evans's hierarchy of crime, lighting people's porches on fire beats sexual shenanigans, and he's prepared to 'defend our right to be freaks anyway, because we're (gosh danged) Americans, is what.'"

Finally, I'm delighted by Maxfield's capacity to weigh people's positives and negatives so even-handedly. "A man who is loyal and wonderful. Maybe a little stubborn. Buttoned-down to a fault. Full of empathy and compassion and the ability to consider a flawed thing beautiful despite its flaws and unique and valuable because of them."

Have you just described yourself, ZA? Balancing personal responsibility with responsibility to others, "Honky Tonk Hellion" is an adult version of a child's fable. If I chose an author to read me bedtime stories, it would be Maxfield.