I don’t love cowboy romances typically but I do enjoy Rebekah Weatherspoon’s writing and I am so glad I read this book. It was delightful and tropey in all the best ways. Cowboys - check. Heroine with amnesia - check. Tons of awesome secondary characters - check. To call this a second chance romance is a bit of a stretch because Evie and Zach weren’t technically a couple back in the day. But she was in love with him and he knew it and deep down, he was avoiding his real feelings for her. I enjoyed the romance and the characters and am really hoping Jesse will get his own book next.

A Cowboy to Remember is a lovely romance novel. It’s full of warmth and friendship, and love of course. I’m not usually fan of the amnesia trope but Rebekah Weatherspoon makes it work. I really liked all the characters and the way they interacted. The character growth and the plot flow smoothly. It all feels very effortless, possibly a little too effortless. I think I would’ve liked some more friction and conflict, especially towards the end when all issues are resolved very easily.

I haven’t met a Rebekah Weatherspoon novel I haven’t liked tbh and I really don’t think I ever will. This romance had a trope that I (usually) despise and that is the soap opera/amnesia trope.

The way Weatherspoon wrote it, however, really made me love it. Evie and Zach were just wonderful characters and I loved them together and we also have my actual favorite trope as well and that’s childhood friends/sweathearts.

Wonderful romance and highly recommended.

ARC copy provided by NetGalley

This was the first book that I have read by Rebekah Weatherspoon. The characters and setting are intriguing. It does get start off very slowly to the point that I almost stopped reading but I pushed through. The way the story unfolds is brilliant because we know there was an EVENT that caused Zach and Evie to not speak for a decade but you don't get told right away. I will have to try another book.

A great start to a new series. Amnesia plots can be super-tricky to pull off, I believe, but this one definitely fell in the "it works" column for me. Evie's character has so many friends (sometimes a little hard for me to keep track of at first, but that's a me problem and not a book problem) that we can easily see how her personality changes while her memories are gone, even though we only spend a very short period of time with her before her accident. It's easy to see why so many people care so deeply about her, to the point of whisking her to the other side of the country to rest and recuperate.

And who wouldn't want to spend time on the Pleasant family ranch, head injury or no head injury? Gorgeous vistas, horses, dogs, and even more gorgeous men. Also strong familial bonds, loving female friends, and a veeery slow burn of a sort-of-second-chance romance between Evie and Zach.

I'm looking forward to more from this series.

I was given an Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'm so here for an amnesia romance with a cowboy!

This book was sweet and quite gentle. As scary as it is to imagine experiencing drastic memory loss, it was soothing to read about someone who had so many people caring for her. I think, in fact, that's why this is a four star book for me, because while I enjoyed the cast of characters a lot, they detracted from time spent between the two main characters. And because the main character had amnesia, it was tough for her personality to shine through, and I found myself more drawn in by some side characters, Miss Leona in particular, about whom I want to read a full biography.

This was cute. Not my favorite, but pretty good. Evie is likable enough, I didn't understand how she reacts to Zach towards the end of the book. The ranch sounded like a great place to visit.

I loved this book~ Rebekah Weatherspoon writes some of the best romances, made better by the friendships and other love-bonds we see beyond the central romantic couple.

Evie Buchanan is a Black celebrity chef who first won a competition show and is now on a talk show type series where she and her cohosts show viewers how to cook dishes. During a Christmas party, though, she gets pushed down a flight of stairs and ends up with amnesia, which results in her heading back to her childhood home if Charming, California and reconnecting with the Pleasant family, including her first love, Zach.

This is a really good second chance romance and I loved the way we see Evie falling in love with Zach without her memory of why they had a falling out that resulted in ten years without contact, and then seeing her memory come back and them have new conversations. Their romance isn’t easy and there’s growth for both of them, but especially i feel for Zach. He recognizes that he was making plans for Evie without Evie’s involvement and that he needs to be there for her versus trying to solve everything for her.

Blaire is absolutely one of my favorite secondary characters - she’s such an excellent, loving friend and I love her so much. I also really like Jesse, Zach’s older brother, and hope his will be the next book in this series. There’s a hint that he may be demisexual (he can’t do casual sex because he needs a connection first) and I am absolutely here for all the asexual-spectrum representation! Plus Jesse is just such a good guy, and a good brother, and he strikes me as an absolute marshmallow under his silent exterior.

This really was such a good read and I cannot wait to see more in this series. Rebekah Weatherspoon is one of my absolute favorite romance authors, and this story doesn’t disappoint. If you want fairy tale-esque romance with great friendships and familial bonds, I wholeheartedly recommend A Cowboy to Remember!

While I am not particularly into books about cowboys, I have enjoyed Rebekah Weatherspoon's previous books, so I decided to read this one without knowing anything about the plot. I highly recommend approaching this book that way - it made the first few chapters really unexpected! In this book celebrity chef Evie loses her memory as the result of a fall. Evie is the sole surviving member of her immediate family, and her worried friends don't know what to do. They call the family Evie grew up with, at which point she is reunited with Zach Pleasant, the titular cowboy and her childhood crush. They fell out years ago and have the chance to start again while she recuperates. I thought Evie was great, and especially loved her relationships with her best friend, assistant, and agent. (I also really liked how some scenes were from her agent's POV.) I didn't think about it while reading, but I'm also now appreciating that Zach was completely upfront with Evie about their estrangement even though she couldn't remember it. Overall though I didn't feel like the reader got to know Zach all that well. He was fine, but I didn't really get why Evie was falling for him again. That being said, this was a really enjoyable book. I loved the Pleasant family, and was rooting for Evie. Looking forward to the next books in this series.

I remember reading the blurb when this was first announced - culinary goddess Evie Buchanan has lost her memory and Zach Pleasant, hot cowboy and former childhood crush, sees his chance to make his past wrongs right. I was like, "Oh, she wrote this one for me!" because sexy chefs and hunky cowboys are my jam, and this did not disappoint.

The way that the story unfolds between Evie and Zach is so damn beautiful. Not only does she have the support of the man who makes a recurring appearance in her dreams, but his entire family! Miss Leona is my favorite. She's no-nonsense but incredibly loving and so damn wise. I can't wait to see more of her in future installments.

There is a side-plot of Evie not remembering who pushed her down the stairs. I love that this didn't overshadow the romance. Evie's escape to Charming for her recovery was the perfect way to focus on her and Zach.

Melanie is a garbage human being and I was screaming for her to get her comeuppance the second she started mouthing off in the stairwell. The fact that she showed absolutely no remorse for attempted murder is wild! Would have liked to see her really face some consequences, but I understand that not every guilty person gets a satisfying punishment in the real world. But this is fiction and I wanted to see her pay!

Okay, let's just state for the record that the cover model does NOT have a big enough mustache to do Zach's justice as described in the book. Besides that, this was a super cute romance with some really unique twists. I'm bumping up from a 3 due to the strong potential for a great series with all of the characters who I LOVED here, and a super strong sense of place.

Why originally a 3? Basically because of something another reviewer here stated too - because of E's memory loss, we didn't really *know* her for the majority of the book. She read fairly flat, which I get because of the situation, but it felt hard to really get invested in her. She was amazing at the beginning though, so I know Weatherspoon CAN write like crazy :-)

Bottom line? I don't really like cowboy romance and I usually don't love memory loss stories, but I devoured this one and am excited for more in the series.

So, this was my first Rebekah Witherspoon book and I'm a FAN!

I loved the writing, the characters and the plot. Evie has such a strong, and interesting history. She was a character you couldn't help but love. She was strong, smart, beautiful, and successful. But most of all, she was nice, sincere, and sweet.

Zach was drop jaw sexy with his own history of pushy parents, great siblings, and an amazing grandmother. Zach was an immature young man who grew into a strong, capable and reedemable man.

While the romance between Evie and Zach was everything you'd want from a story, the supporting characters and the amnesia added such depth to the storyline.

I'm a new fan to Ms. Witherspoon and cannot wait to see which character gets their story next.

Thanks NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC.

I could not get into this one.
Not at all.
I didn’t even get through two chapters and I was giving up. Not sure why this wasn’t the book for me.

A Cowboy to Remember follows Evie, a television chef, who through a series of events (aka the most dramatic chapter one) winds up in a coma and wakes up with no real memory of who she is or who anyone else is. Her best friend, assistant, and agent band together to help her figure out what's next but determine they need to call in reinforcements, which is how Zach Pleasant winds up back in Evie's life.

The way the story unfolds is utterly brilliant because we know there was an EVENT that caused Zach and Evie to not speak for a decade and that it has something to do with Zach sort of rejecting Evie at a bad time because he was too dumb to recognize his feelings for what they were and to fight for them. But we only really see this from Zach's perspective and he apologizes to Evie, but it's easy for her to move past their past with no memory of it. This is not to say that their relationship, creating one again, is easy. It's not. But the layers of emotion poured into this story after Evie's memory comes back just... It hurts! It feels real.

In truth, amnesia tropes are weird and I hate deception plots of any kind. What I loved about the way the trope was handled in this book is that there is no real deception. Evie knows (is told) who Zach is and she has dreamt of Zach before he even arrives in NY so she knows he's important to her and Zach admits that he's the one who messed up. So there's no deception, but there is the thing I love in all narrative arcs, which is a woman figuring out who she is and being loved through that process. Honestly, Rebekah Weatherspoon should give a masterclass in whatever magic she weaved into this story because I can't even articulate for you how good this book is. It's just... masterfully told.

Rebekah Weatherspoon kicks off her Cowboys of California series with a challenging trope – the Amnesiac Lover. The Amnesiac Lover has one member of the pair unable to remember who they are or some aspect of their identity which opens the door for a romance that would not otherwise occur. It’s a problematic trope, because so much of who we are is formed by our experiences. Even though I knew she would do it well, I was still anxious about how she would pull it off. I received A Cowboy to Remember from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Romance novels are about the journey. We know that the destination will be at the very least a happily for now. How the reader gets there then is the point of the story. How do these two or more people come together and decide to partner up, and what does that look like in our contemporary world? How do two people build a romantic relationship when one of them has amnesia?

Yvonne “Evie” Buchanan has not talked to childhood friend Zach Pleasant in 10 years, not since the night after her grandmother’s funeral when he refused to admit he loved her. A decade later, she is a celebrity chef and a co-host one a popular new daytime talk show. At a holiday party, she is found unconscious in a stairwell. She wakes up in the hospital with no memory of her life, or any of the people around her. Evie returns to her childhood home in Charming California to recuperate and, she hopes, recover her memory. Though she doesn’t remember Zach, he’s the person she connects with the most. Weatherspoon navigates tricky waters making sure that we know Zach is not taking advantage of a vulnerable woman by focusing on Evie’s agency. Zach makes sure she knows that he was at fault for the estrangement between them and puts her firmly in charge of where their relationship goes. I, personally, would have liked to see a few more pages of grovelling.

I’m certainly not advocating head injuries as a way to solve life’s problems. Evie’s fictional head injury/amnesia gives her a clean(ish) slate from which to reset her life. She’s able to connect with people who were important to her, connect with her family legacy, and connect to her love of cooking without the baggage that a decade of life will give you. Evie gets to know and value herself without her worth being tied up in her work. Her clean slate is temporary. But when her memory does return she still has those connections and she’s able to move forward with clarity and support. Evie’s amnesia serves two purposes in her relationship with Zach – it let’s her get to know him as an adult, and it gives him the extremely hard kick in the pants he needed to recognize how much he has always loved Evie.

A Cowboy to Remember is a lovely romance. Weatherspoon has turned down the heat (which may disappoint some people and make her more accessible to others), but it has a good dose of pining and emotional connection. I loved Miss Leona and hope there is a lot more of the matriarch in subsequent books.

What a charming, sexy, feel-good romance about Evie - an award-winning tv chef with amnesia - and her childhood love Zach - a Californian Cowboy and previous rodeo champion. After a 10 year separation, their paths cross once again, yet she cannot remember anything.

Rebekah has become an auto-buy author for me and I trusted her skills to lead me into my 1st cowboy romance. There's so much to love about this real-world representative novel with
- diverse characters galore, not just diverse 'token' characters,
- a wonderful supportive cast who I can't wait to get to read about in upcoming books,
- characters who you'd want to hang out with in person,
- a beautiful love story between two people who have so much history yet have to re-discover each other with love, respect, and care to secure their future together.

Both casual and blatant racism as well as physical assault are addressed in the romance and might be considered as content warning for some readers.

This is a 5 star read for me!
I hope it won't be too long until we get to read the next one in this series.

I received a free copy of #ACowboytoRemember via #NetGalley in advance of the publication date. All views expressed in this review are a true representation of my own opinion.

One of my most anticipated reads for 2020 and I loooved it! I really don't read many cowboy books but I was excited for this one because BLACK BOWBOYS??? YES! Rebekah gives me the main cast are all POC...sexy black cowboy...sleeping beauty retelling with a twist that I didn't know I needed!

This book is sweet and funny and I just love how Evie had to relearn herself and Zach, because of her memory loss. Rebekah really knows how to start off a book with a bang, and from the first chapter you are like: OMG! then you're just keep engaged throughout.

Rebekah always gives me some secondary characters that I just want to be friends with and honestly they do remind me of my friends and our chats. ALSO we get a bunch of casually queer secondary characters, some who are on page longer, some we just meet briefly but they are there!

I especially swooned at Zach's sweet gesture to Evie at the end there. (THE NUTMEG IN THE BOTTLE!) a gesture that makes sense for the character and linked to an earlier scene in the book. I love hiiiim and his brothers! I can't wait for their books!

also more fun, fashion savvy grandmas in books please. Miss Leoana was a great character with style and some good advice and just pure love for her family.

I could keep rambling on and on about the things i loved with this so let me just end by saying that the conversation between Evie and Zach, that was the black moment was so well written and emotional that I felt like I was there in Evie's shoes and wanting to cry along with her as they both expressed their true feelings but we got to the HEA !

I just want all the books set at this very charming ranch with the sexy cowboys!

I received an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Evie is a celebrityety chef that grew up on a ranch. She was friends with three boys one of which she had major crush/hots for. It didn't end on good terms. Fast forward to now when Evie looses her memory and the guy from the past comes to her aid. He looks and feels like a cowboy superhero. I may have fallen in love with him upon first reading about him; He is so charming.

The book was really good. It does get slow off and on from the 25%-75% mark. I enjoyed the book. It just wasn't keeping my attention for very long. I had to take breaks and come back.

It's no where near my favorite book by Rebekah Weatherspoon but I don't regret reading the book. I would ever recommend it cowboy lovers or other fans of the author. However, it's a one read and that's it type of book; I won't be rereading it in the future.

4.5 stars!

When I heard Rebekah Weatherspoon was coming out with a cowboy romance, I was all in. I didn't even need to read the blurb. I just knew that I needed to read it. The Cowboys of California series kicks off with a modern day amnesia story and second chance romance in A Cowboy to Remember.

Evie can't remember what happened, but she wakes up in a hospital bed not remembering any details of her life. The only thing that might jog her memory is an old family friend listed as her emergency contact.

I loved our two MCs. Evie is a successful chef living in New York City only she can't remember that. She has to relearn how to cook, relearn the connections to her friends and family ties. That includes a re-meet with one cocky and sexy-as-sin cowboy, Zach, who appears in her dreams but who she can't remember.

There's also the knowledge that Evie and Zach didn't leave on good terms. So what's a woman to do when she wants something, but doesn't remember the history behind the connection?

Evie may be scared of this new reality where she has to start over, but she's determined to do it. The support of her found family made this such a charming read. Miss Leona had to be my favorite side character.

Then there's Zach. He's got charisma and charm, and him and Evie instantly have this attraction and chemistry. I loved the small town atmosphere and getting to have this slow burn romance and friendship connection re-built. Evie and Zach have an amazing repertoire together with delightful bouts of teasing & sarcasm, but with as much comfort and communication.

Le sigh!

I was delighted with the intimacy to this story that's layered so deeply, I couldn't look away. This cowboy romance satisfies on all counts with romance, humor, and family.

I requested this ARC because I've read almost all of Rebekah Weatherspoon's other books, and I think that for the most part, it's good stuff. A Cowboy to Remember, though, does not rank in the top tier of her works.

The story follows Evie Buchanon, a celebrity chef who loses her memory after an incident, and returns to the ranch she grew up on to recover out of the limelight.

The memory loss plotline really made the romance feel kind of icky to me. Evie reunites with high school crush Zach, but she can't remember why they haven't spoken in ten years. Although he and others do their best to explain the rift from their own perspectives, having Evie get involved with someone she'd already rejected but can't remember why just felt kind of uncomfortable.

There were also, frankly, too many side characters. Evie had three friends in New York who popped up, and then there was the entire Pleasant family, as well as several other people working at the ranch, and honestly, it was really hard to keep up with who they all were. The last thing I didn't like about the book was the villain. We know from the beginning who the culprit form the amnesia-inducing incident was, and she's just a ridiculous cardboard cutout of a villain who confesses the first time she's confronted about it with a gleeful villain monologue. I know that wasn't really the main focus of the book, but I wish there'd been a little more effort put into that part of the story.

For the good things: some of the side characters were really lovable, like Zach's grandmother and Evie's nurse. I enjoyed the parts of the story that involved Evie relearning her life and how to cook. Honestly, though, if you're looking for a good romance, turn to Weatherspoon's Loose Ends books instead.