This was my first Caitlin Crews novel and it was very enjoyable. The characters were well written and the storyline flowed. While this is a story of unconventional marriage it was very predictable how the story would end. I look forward to more stories from her.

Gray wants to keep his family's land out of greedy developers' hands, so a proposal of a marriage of convenience to his neighbor, Abby, seems like the way to do that. Plus with Abby around, she can help with his daughter. It doesn't hurt when Gray notices that Abby's grown into a beautiful woman. But, there will be rules to this marriage - mainly that he's not capable of love, so that will not happen for them. It's just for convenience. At least on his part. As far as Abby's concerned, she's more than happy to marry the man she's always had a crush on. So what that he'll never return her feelings, right?

I wanted to love A True Cowboy Christmas, and I thought I would. Unfortunately, it just did not work for me. It's not horrible or anything, it's just so negative in tone that I couldn't connect with it. And it's all because of the hero, Gray. Gray was so determined to not become a man like his father, and yet, that's exactly what he was doing until the very end. He was pretty much a jerk, and so negative, I couldn't stand him, quite frankly. Abby was just OK, nothing special but not unlikable or anything. So I'm sorry to say that I can't really rate this higher than 3 stars. It may not even deserve 3, but I don't like to rate less than 3 unless it's really bad.

This was a Christmas story of self-discovery for the main characters, Abby and Gray. Long-time neighbors in a remote Coloradoan mountain valley. Abby has been infatuated with Gray since she was a child;she never dated and has worked for many years in the local coffee shop as the manager, while being raised by her grandparents due to an absentee mother. Gray, the local cattle rancher, has been in a “living hell” with his father, Amos, since he was young, with rarely a mother figure in the picture. Amos is a drunken, cantankerous old man who never had a good word to say about anyone or anything. You could say he has a toxic personality.
I enjoyed the entire story about Abby and Gray and how they learn some self-truths while trying to help each other. The story is well written; with wonderful character development and the setting plays a part without overdoing it. I found the writing style to flow and pull emotions from me. I fell into the story and could picture the scenes in my mind as I read. Not your traditional Christmas story as Christmas isn't a main character but plays a supporting role.

Caitlin Crews’s A True Cowboy Christmas is one of the most convincing contemporary marriage-of-convenience romances I’ve read … and so many other things. It opens with the hero’s father’s funeral. Gray Everett, however, is not mourning his father, but afraid of ending up like him. Gray introduces us to the family with: “Everetts historically lived mean and more than a little feral … tended to nurse the bottle or wield their piety like a weapon, spending their days alone and angry.” Gray’s Colorado ranch, Cold River Ranch, has never been a happy home. His father, a mean, violent drunk; his cheating wife, dead for ten years in a car crash; Gray works the land, cattle, and horses, keeps the bank at bay, and rears his teen daughter, Becca. Back at the ranch, at the post-funeral luncheon, where neighbours and friends have gathered to pay their respects and many to breathe a sigh of relief that Amos Everett’s meanness will no longer touch anyone, Gray realizes that ” … if he didn’t change”, “today’s grumpy hermit” would become “tomorrow’s bitter, old man.” He resolves, there and then, in sight of the funeral-baked casseroles, that he “was going to have to figure out a way to live this life without drowning in his own darkness” and “to make sure that Becca didn’t succumb to it either.” Gray looks up from his thoughts to heroine and neighbour-spinster Abby Douglas’s question, should she warm up a casserole?

Though Gray is replete with anger and hurt, he decides that he will save himself and offer Becca a mother by proposing a marriage-of-convenience to the stalwart, dependable woman he’s known all his life. She’s been in the background, as the Colorado mountains, big-blue-sky, and acres of his land. He wants a marriage of quiet consideration, fuss at minimum, and emotional-level at respect:

What he needed was a practical woman. A solid, dependable woman who understood reality and could commit as much to the legacy of this land as the man who worked it, instead of making demands and dreaming of far-off cities Gray would rather die than live in.

Famous last words? You bet. Gray compounds his emotional comeuppance by characterizing Abby as: “Plain, sweet, easygoing and helpful … Solid, practical Abby … steadfast and pragmatic … the perfect solution to a problem he’d only just realized he needed to solve.” Gray isn’t wrong about Abby, she is all those things, but she is also much more. Gray’s understanding of Abby, while not “off,” contains one fundamental problem. His understanding of his problem: he doesn’t need a practical, dependable wife, he needs to be loved and to love in return. Of course, being a Christmas grinch and unconscious of his own feelings and needs, Abby’s honesty, love, and challenges to all his notions of self-identity come crashing down.

I adored Abby and I loved Gray and I was thoroughly immersed in their painful, heart-feeling, and glorious romance. Abby loved Gray since they were children and he was the handsome young man to her childish eyes (Gray is 38 to Abby’s 30): “Abby Douglas had spent most of her life fantasizing about Gray Everett … six feet three inches of straight-up cowboy fantasy … Abby had fallen head over heels in love with Gray, literally, when she’d been barely five. She’d fallen down at the church picnic, he’d picked her up and set her right, and she’d never quite been the same after.” When Gray shows up at the home Abby shares with her grandmother the day after his father’s funeral, you’d think Abby would fall at Gray’s feet in gratitude and panting spinster-lust at his inelegant marriage proposal. She doesn’t: “Abby didn’t want to fling herself into Gray’s lean, hard arms, she … kind of wanted to kill him.”

Thus begins a tug-of-emotional-war between Gray’s determination to keep Abby at messy-feelings arms-length and Abby’s wise understanding of the man she’s loved since childhood. The roots of their often painful, deeply heart-rooted love, how they hurt and bolster each other, their marriage as disappointment and their marriage as utter connection and joy have their origin in the conversation around Gray’s proposal, one of the best I’ve read:

“Right. Something about shared goals and roots, and did you call me uncomplicated?” Gray regarded her for a moment. “That’s a compliment.” “I think you’ll find that no matter how you phrase it, there are very few women who like being uncomplicated.” “Because you’d rather be an impenetrable mystery?” Abby frowned at him.

There was something about the way she fired questions at him. As if she was interviewing him for the position of husband. And he was amazed how interested he was in getting the job when he’d been so sure she’d act grateful and pleased that he’d proposed to her in the first place. But it was more than that. Gray felt nearly agitated, and he didn’t like that at all … Gray … considered himself a pragmatist who preferred the company of his horses and the enduring quiet of the mountains, that was all. Abby was much more entertaining than he’d anticipated.

Abby, it turns out, is much more than entertaining. She’s warm, funny, smart, and loves him with a love as abiding as his mountains and land. She makes him work for her and that makes Gray respect and like her even more. Her beautiful, steady hazel gaze unnerves him. At first, he’s entertained, amused, and intrigued. He actually thinks he has the upper hand! Then, when as she becomes necessary to him, he’s unnerved, unmanned, and overtaken by his love for her, a love he neither recognizes nor acknowledges, rendering him cold and unfeeling, even as he seethes with need, desire, and love.

As Gray’s heart roils and moils, Abby faces him with equanimity, a good dose of challenge and humour, and a growing understanding of her own self-worth. She understands exactly what she’s getting into by marrying Gray: “It was all her dreams come true, and none of them, all at once.” She confronts what is, from the above passage, Gray’s arrogance in thinking her grateful for his proposal, with a deep knowledge of romance tropes! Witness one of my favourite scenes, Abby telling her wonderfully-drawn grandmother about Gray’s proposal:

“When I imagined somebody wanting to marry me, I imagined that they would want to marry me. Not any old woman who fit their idea of what a wife should be. I might as well by a mail-order bride.” “Your great-grandmother was a mail-order bride,” Grandma replied serenely.

Abby continues to play with our genre’s conventions of MOC, mail-order brides and spinsters-without-much-choice, as she thinks of Gray marrying “the last true spinster of the American West”. Of course, Gray’s lack of heart-knowledge leads to a lot of ugly, painful scenes and their marriage devolves into Gray’s resentful silence and Abby’s confronting him with what their “convenience” constitutes: “angry, silent sex and shared chores”.

That final masterful phrase should further prove how fantastic Crews’s Christmas romance is, for Christmas is key to bringing out the painful truths that will make Abby and Gray’s marriage one of true minds and beating hearts. Their dark moment emerges out of their frailties and their joy and HEA out of shared strengths, but the greatest of these is a capacity for reparation, forgiveness, and love. Whatever you do this holiday season, take a few hours to read Crews’s incomparable romance. With Miss Austen, I say it contains “no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” Emma.

Caitlin Crews’s A True Cowboy Christmas is published by St. Martin’s Paperbacks. It was released on October 30th and may be found at your preferred vendors. I received an e-galley from St. Martin’s, via Netgalley.

Loved!! First time reading this author and picked book because it was a Christmas book. I was not disappointed! I bought copies for my book buddies and me!!

This was a wonderful heart-warming story of two people who need each other and don't see it. I enjoyed the characters and the plot. It was a cozy read for Christmas and I would love to read it again!

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I was looking forward to this because it seemed like a good marriage of convenience story. However, this was a long drawn out read. I was pretty disappointed. The story was just so long and didn’t pull me in. Gary was a pretty big jerk at times and the story was just not for me.

Modern Mail Order Bride?

Two deeply dysfunctional families, drawn together through the death of the patriarch of Cold River Ranch, claw their way through the holidays. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? But it is anything but. More a modern fairy tale--Beauty and the (inner) Beast; a love story and a fight for a way of life as the spirit of Thanksgiving and the true meaning of Christmas work their magic. This is a beautifully nuanced, rich story of love and faith and patience and values overcoming meanness, hate, discord, and dissatisfaction.

First of all, I'd like to say this photo of this man does not even resemble to Gray in the novel! Just sayin'!



Moving on..The beginning starts with Gray and his brothers burying their deceased abusive father on their Colorado property. Gary is one of those hardcore cowboys\ranchers type. Gary wonders about his life and how to save the land when he happens to glance up and sees his neighbor standing in his doorway and an idea forms.



Abby has been in love with Gary since forever. She's a hard worker and knows her mind. She believes she's not beautiful thanks to her unattached mother who loved to berate her. Abby and her grandmother happen to be Gary's neighbors for many years.



Both of them had a rough upbringing thanks to their dysfuntional family members.



Abby gets the shock of her life when Gary shows up at her house out of the blue moon, proposing her. That had to be the longest proposal ever! That conversation had me cracking up so hard. After a lot of questioning and debates, they agree to go on their first date before they get married. This would be the start of their journey of a very short date into their marriage along with Gary's teen daughter from former marriage, two brothers, and Abby's no nonsense grandmother. Gary was very set against Christmas until he learns the true meaning of Christmas.



It was an interesting love story. The author truly captured what a true cowboy\rancher is normally like. I wouldn't mind knowing what happens to Gary's brothers and the outcome of the land in Colorful Colorado.



I'd give this book a 3 3\4 stars.



I received this ARC from St. Martin's Paperbacks through Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased and honest review. Thank you!

Cold River Ranch's, Gray Everett is a modern day scrooge. But there is someone new at the ranch that just may unmelt his cold heart.

A True Cowboy Christmas by Caitlin Crews is a sweet start to her new Cold River Ranch series, with a modern day marriage of convenience romance set during the fall and winter holidays in rural Colorado.

When Gray Everett’s miserable, alcoholic father died, he left the Cold River Ranch to Gray and his two brothers, Brady and Ty. Unlike his brothers, Gray has no intention of leaving his home, and with the advent of his father’s death, he takes stock of what is missing in his life and determines that he needs a partner. And who better to fill the role of wife and mother to his teenaged daughter than neighboring longtime resident Abby Douglas.

When Gray approaches Abby with a marriage of convenience offer, she’s not sure if it’s her long held dream or her worst nightmare coming to life. She’s had a crush on Gray since she was young, but believed herself to be too plain, too ordinary, too practical to ever catch his eye. She’s nothing like his former wife, a beautiful woman who died in a car accident. She’d dreamed of a proposal from Gray for years – but not like this, as a sensible business arrangement with no emotions attached. She knows it might be the only offer she’ll ever get since she has no plans to leave the Longhorn Valley or stray too far from her elderly grandmother. Still, there’s a spark of something that passes between them, a realization that their marriage bed might not be a cold place after all. Can they turn a practical solution into a lifetime of love?

I really enjoyed this story! The buildup of sexual tension between Gray and Abby starts from their first kiss at which point they both realize that there is an attraction between them that will serve them well in their marriage. This is disconcerting for Gray, who has no intention of falling in love after his previous marriage disaster and seeing his father go through wife after wife. He believes Abby will be a great partner but he makes it clear to Abby that love isn’t part of the bargain. Abby on the other hand has dreamed of a life with Gray since childhood but it always included him being in love with her. Her friends try to counsel her on the wisdom of her decision to marry him because they know they she will be emotionally attached in no time. But Abby decides that taking what’s on offer is better than nothing. And sex with Gray will clearly not be a problem.

As the two get closer physically, it becomes harder to keep their emotions in check. Abby has her own baggage from a mother who abandoned her at a young age yet keeps coming back to harp on Abby’s self esteem with cruelly calculated comments. She’s lived with her grandmother for years, and leaving her to move in with Gray is another adjustment she has to make. Plus, making friends with Gray’s daughter is important to her and fraught with the girl’s feelings about her father remarrying.

Gray’s relationship with his brothers is an important part of the story. Brady and Ty have not shown any interest in the ranch before now and having their father leave it to all three equally is a bitter pill to swallow. Brady and Ty would like to sell the property but Gray is not interested. He was born here, he lives here and he plans to be buried in the family plot. Working through their issues, and Gray’s fear of turning into a man like his father is a side story to the sweet and sexy romance that blossoms with Abby. If there’s a flaw, it’s that the author sometimes has a habit of meandering and repetitive introspection from her characters but it didn’t detract from the overall story enjoyment for me. I highly recommend this lovely cowboy romance and look forward to more in the series!

The first book in the Cold River Ranch series. To be honest you have to peel some layers to get to the sweet holiday romance in this book, but it is well worth reading! Both Abby and Gray have some history. There are many other characters that enrich the story. I hope see some of these characters in future books. I love holiday ROMANCES!

I received an advance copy fromthe publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my open and honest opinion.

Loved this book, its a very unconvential romance, and yet it blossoms into the most wonderful story.

Gray needs a wife, his next door neighbour seems ok, so he proposes, Abby is gobsmacked, but has always had a crush on him so she agrees and becomes an instant wife/rancher/stepmum.

Not a typical read but lovely none the less and i am a sucker for cowboy romances.

I really enjoyed this book. The story is a real page turner. The characters are strong and we'll developed. The writing is very good. I give the book 4.5 stars and I recommend it!

I adored Caitlin Crews’s latest A True Cowboy Christmas book from the first page. Crews drew me into the story with her easy prose and kept me quickly turning pages. Abby and Gray were both well-rounded characters that brought out the best in each other. The conflict is more about Gray letting go of his past than with Abby, but it works. I fell in love with the ranch and the small town Crews created.

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this novel.

This unconventional Christmas novel deserves so much more than a 5-star rating because it’s an emotionally charged coming-of-age story that brings two unlikely people together and teaches them both that who they are is much more important than who they came from. Gray is a modern day rancher pushing 40 with a deep love and commitment to the land that has been in his family for generations. He’s just buried his father, a man who made his life a living nightmare, leaving his absent brothers co-owners of the ranch they never set foot on, and no matter what the old man’s will says he’s not going to lose his legacy. Abby is a lonely young woman who was raised by her grandparents on a neighboring farm after her mother dropped her on their doorstep and took off for parts unknown. She loves her grandmother, her neighbors and her town but she’s given up on marriage and motherhood because if nothing else, she’s pragmatic about her lack of prospects. When Gray shows up on her doorstep proposing marriage Abby is shell shocked but she can’t walk away from her one chance to be a wife and mother, especially since she’s had a crush on Gray since she was a child. But there’s no way Abby is prepared for the bitterness that Gray feels in his heart as he privately fears he’s exactly like his father. Gray is too miserable to see the telltale signs of abandonment his teenage daughter suffers from, but Abby knows them all too well because she hears her spiteful mother’s words in her head every minute of every day. What touched me the most about this book was the hopelessness that malicious words can leave on our hearts and just how devastating our own inner dialogue can be when it drowns out the joy to be found in life. I cried buckets of tears over these characters as Gray and Abby finally come to realize how profoundly love can heal even the most shattered hearts. I read a complimentary copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley and all opinions expressed in my voluntary review are completely my own.

I enjoyed this book. The main characters, Abby and Gray, grew up as neighbors but never really knew each other. One day they decided to enter into a marriage of convenience and the emotional roller coaster begins for both of them. There is plenty of emotional depth and romance as they each learn to navigate through their relationship. Gray, a stereotypical cowboy, learns to trust Abby, who is warm and caring, unlike his previous wife. Abby tries to bring comfort and healing to the man she has loved from a distance since childhood, while reconciling her own trust issues due to her mother's flighty personality. Crews brings to life a feel good romance novel that is worth reading.

A True Cowboy Christmas
Cold River Ranch book #1
Release Date: October 30, 2018
Review copy provided by the publisher

I'm a sucker for cowboys. I mean, who doesn't like that swagger and charm that can bring a woman to her knees? I was excited to get started on this book. I was feeling kinda festive a little early this year, so this was perfect for that.

Man, Gray is broody dude. Don't get me wrong, I love broodiness in my heroes, but Gray was on a whole other level. He had every right to be that way; he'd been through the wringer with his relationship with his father and ex-wife.

I found it a bit hard to believe that the heroine, Abby, would accept a marriage proposal from a guy who had barely spared her a glance. She's loved him from afar, but still. Also, a 30 year old virgin? That one is REALLY difficult to wrap my head around. Abby irritated me with her constant self doubt. It was all the damn time. Again, I know she's been through a crap ton of stuff in her past, but enough already.

There was so much emotional baggage to sort through with these two. I really liked all the angst in this book. I like something that crushes my heart and then puts it back together. The characters in this book had to really work hard to get their HEA.

The love scenes were forgettable. They were few and far between. I expect more from a romance. I stay away from "sweet" romance for that very reason.

This was a good book, but not amazing. The emotion and angst is what really grabbed me. I liked it enough that I'll look into the next books in the series when they are released.

Gray has a lot on his mind now that his father is no longer in the picture. They have just finished with the last of the funeral proceeding and instead of mourning, Gray’s mind is on trying to keep his family’s homestead. With his brother’s back, Gray explains to them that the ranch has been and always will be his home. Being a single father, his sibling can’t understand why Gray would choose this lifestyle for himself or his teen daughter. Frustrated, Gray decides that perhaps it is time for him to find another wife.

It’s funny when Gray tackles this issue. Gray is not looking for love or an emotional bond with his new wife, he is looking for a partner to share the load. A woman who is used to the harsh conditions, someone who can handle farm life and someone who won’t ask much from him. He finds that someone just down the road, a girl he has known all his life but failed to actually “see her.” He immediately goes to her house and inquires about marriage. Abby, of course is shocked at what Gray is asking of her and she has lots of questions. Gray doesn’t know it yet, but Abby has been crushing on Gray for years so inside her heart is pounding. I’m cracking up as I read their conversation and finally it is decided, that she needs some time to think his question over.

Abby lives with grandma and this woman is a sweetheart. Grandma tells it like it is and gives Abby some great advice throughout the novel. Abby decides to marry Gray and their ceremony will be small. Gray’s daughter is delighted that her father is getting married again and she welcomes Abby into the ranch without reservations.

Both of these adults come into this marriage with issues. Their parents have played an important role in their lives and how significant that is, impacts their marriage. I liked how Abby stuck to her true self and how they both did some soul-searching within themselves to help change the situation.

This novel stuck with me as I read it, I had a hard time putting it down once I started as I needed to know how things progressed. I liked how the characters got emotional and this novel got steamy at times as they got comfortable. 4.5 stars

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

This was good, but I had a harder time connecting with the story.

Both Abby and Gray have a truck full of baggage when they come together in one of the more unconventional relationships I have seen.

While I understood Gray’s issues, they made it hard to relate to him. The saving grace, was the grudging emotional growth he experienced

I liked Abby, but struggled a little bit with her sense of self and why she'd put herself in the situation she was in. I also enjoyed the secondary cast and am curious about future books in the series.