I was so excited that Jesse was getting his own book and this was everything I had hoped for! I absolutely loved the romance between Jesse and Lily-Grace, but what really resonated with me is Jesse's struggles being the the eldest sibling and feeling like you have to do everything for others. Rebekah has delivered another thoughtful and sweet contemporary romance with dynamic characters that will leave smile on your face after reading it.

4.5 Stars, rounded up.

I love Rebekah Weatherspoon and her books are an auto-buy for me. I have really enjoyed this series, and was anxiously awaiting this book. While I did really enjoy Jesse's story, I do have a couple of small issues with this book.

First, the good stuff: RW never disappoints with her sex scenes. Such great steam in this book! The scenes are hot, but also maintain their realism that sex is not always perfect. I appreciate that about her writing.

She also writes wonderful characters. I really liked Lily-Grace. She is confident, secure in who she is, and the perfect match for Jesse. It was also great to finally get in Jesse's head a bit. And the fact that he sought out a therapist and worked on his issues?! LOVE IT. I want everyone to have therapy! It is fantastic! Go Jesse!

The Pleasant family and everyone at Big Rock Ranch have such fun interactions.. I love the scenes with the big family get-togethers. And all of the love for their animals always warms my heart.

So, my main issue with this is that I felt like it was really rushed at the end. Maybe it is just because I never want it to end? But it seemed like it went from this big traumatic event, then one scene, then it was the epilogue with the HEA.
A very minor issue for me is that I felt like the name Lily-Grace was a bit too close to Lilah. It weirded me out a bit. Super minor, as I said, but I thought it multiple times throughout the book.

Anyways, I hope Lilah gets a book next!

A Thorn in the Saddle not only delivered the Jesse content I think we've all been waiting for (and made me feel a little guilty about how badly I wanted it!) but also gave us a heroine I truly fell in love with. Lily Grace is such a fantastic strong and outspoken character. Her journey was one I really loved getting to experience alongside her and watching her give Jesse a hard time was certainly a lot of fun.

Essentially, Jesse finds his grandma and Lily Grace's dad locked in a... heated embrace shall we say and sort of loses his temper. (Don't worry, he also goes to therapy!) He gets told a lot that he has anger issues, which, honestly, would likely shorten my fuse too. Anyway, Lily Grace, who is home because her job in tech sort of... became a place she didn't want to be (content warning for sexual harassment) and her boyfriend was sort of (a lot) disappointing in response, has a lot to say to Jesse about losing his temper on her dad like that. And then we're basically off to the races.

The tentative steps toward friendship and more, the sex lessons, the sexual tension, the romantic gestures... I mean, this book delivers in a lot of ways. I felt like it sort of lost momentum for me in the third quarter of the book, which is where it faltered for me, but overall, I enjoyed this one and am grateful for the chance to have read it!

4 stars = Great! Might re-read

When I started this one I thought I would just read a few chapters and pick it back up the next day, but before I knew it I was halfway through. I have enjoyed the previous books in the series, and it was easy to fall back into the story and the characters. Nothing overly surprising here - just a solid, steady continuation of the Pleasant family story. I liked the main characters in this one, and enjoyed the updates on the rest of the extended cast as well. (Language, sex - some references to history of BDSM for one character)

A great finish to this trilogy about brothers. A prickly hero adds just the right amount of tension, and I enjoyed the honesty between the characters (and within the characters themselves) about the mental health challenges they were facing.

Rebekah Weatherspoon’s A Thorn in the Saddle has such a great book. You’ve got an MC combo: a giant, bald, reserved hero who can take over the dance floor & a fierce, smart, heroine who can wipe the floor with the hero or anyone else when she’s mad enough to do so.

Jesse Pleasant is one of the three Pleasant Brothers & the main one who feels the weight of responsibility for their luxury dude ranch & the family he loves.

The opening is pure hilarity when Jesse punches the man on top of his grandmother when he walks into her home unannounced, only to realize that granny is happily getting her groove on & the man in question is none other than his grandmother’s secret lover & Lily-Grace LeRoux’s father.

Lily-Grace is .45 hot with Jesse & she lets him know. It is so much fun. But then, even though she’s just visiting, she & Jesse begin sharing their emotional baggage with one another & eventually strike up a “ I can teach you a thing or 2” sex lessons agreement.

Rebekah gives us toxic masculinity, anger management, & sexual insecurity, vitiligo rep, and family loyalty. Jesse has some emotional work to do & he does it, going to therapy & considering why he responds so angrily sometimes to situations. Queen Rebekah never disappoints and this book was definitely top tier.

A masterful storyteller, Rebekah Weatherspoon's stories are captivating. This third book in the Cowboys of California series is no exception. Jesse and Lilly-Grace's tumultuous journey is passionate and heartfelt. I loved it!
Thank you for another awesome read!! #AThornintheSaddle #NetGalley

The last of the Pleasant brothers finally finds love! It was amazing to be immersed in the Cowboys of California world again.

Jesse Pleasant has a temper that sometimes gets the best of him and an obligation to take care of his family and his ranch. A Senate committee shows up looking for see if he’d like to fill an open seat in Washington. Jesse figures this is another chance to help his community, but his people skills definitely will need work. Lily-Grace Leroux shows up in town just in time to find out Jesse might be messing up her father’s chance with his grandmother. Sparks fly (and not in a good way), but then she sees Jesse’s softer side during a super awkward community date auction. They end up agreeing to an exchange of skills development but maybe there’s more there than just friendship.

First off, if you’ve already read either of the other books in the series, you know that Jesse is a huge teddy bear and also that the Big Rock Ranch crew is wonderful. I’ve been so excited to get a chance to see Jesse finally find love and immerse myself in this world again. However, the start of this story definitely leaves something to be desired. Jesse does something super monumentally stupid which lets him (re)meet Lily-Grace (they were childhood friends), but also is just so frustrating to read about. It kind of made me root against him for the first third of the book or so.

But the arrival of Lily-Grace did make Jesse turn his life around and make some pretty major changes that were super endearing. He’s really there for Lily-Grace as she also works through some things (trigger warning: mentions of sexual harassment). Seeing both Jesse and Lily-Grace open up to each other and their friends and family was really refreshing and let us get to know them both really well. Plus, although I can’t speak to the accuracy of the specific representation in this book, based on my other experiences with this author, Rebekah Weatherspoon is great at confronting stigmas by including authentic experiences within her stories without making those what the book is all about. This story gave readers a chance to see important representation that sometimes gets ignored in fiction (I won’t say exactly what to avoid spoilers). Watching Jesse and Lily-Grace use their unique life experiences to grow as individuals and fall in love made me so happy.

Overall, I definitely recommend you give this book a try. If you’ve read other Cowboys of California books, you will definitely have been waiting for Jesse’s book and it’s finally here! If you haven’t read the other books, you could still jump right into this one, although I recommend starting at the beginning of the series so you really understand the world of Big Rock Ranch.

Jesse and Lily-Grace were friends in elementary school but lost touch when she moved away. Years later their meeting is very different- Jesse gets angry on finding his grandmother and Lily-Graces father in a compromising position. And because of that Lily-Graces father gets injured and Lily- Grace tells Jesse exactly what she thinks of his behavior.
This is my first book in the series and though it can be read as stand alone, I feel I would have enjoyed more had I read the previous ones.
It was a good read with some amazing chemistry and very low angst.

This is one of those books that's good, and I like it, but it doesn't quite work for some its-not-you-its-me reasons.

The good:

- While there's bunches of conflict, both external and internal, none of that conflict is within the relationship. So despite Jessie working on his anger and role in the extended family, and despite Lily-Grace's awful ex and indecision about what to do next in her life, the relationship itself is low angst.

- This is the first time I've seen vitiligo on the page! Lily-Grace has has it since she's a child, and I love that it's both a non-issue (Jesse doesn't stick on it) and that it isn't forgotten ('hey, can you help me put on this sunscreen before we swim?').

- Lily-Grace is awesome, in general. She doesn't take any crap from anyone, and she's secure in her sense of self and in her own worth. The dynamic with her best friend, Jenny, is great, too.

- People have been telling Jesse to go to therapy for two books by now, and he finally does. It's great to see him work through his anger, and while the opening of the book is kinda... severe?... I feel like he redeems himself for it.

- I love that both Jesse and Lily-Grace have money, and they discuss how they use it. He likes giving expensive gifts. She likes receiving expensive gifts, especially those she's hinted at (Pinterest board) or specifically asks for. It would seem over the top if handled poorly, but here it's done well.

- There's a mini theme about taking care of yourself before taking care of others. Yes, it's noble to do good in the world by running for office, say, or exposing corruption, but not everyone is in a place to do that. It may make sense to wait. It may make sense to leave it to someone else and affect positive change elsewhere through another means. And that's great.

What didn't work for me, personally:

- Lily-Grace's ex is awful and won't go away, and I am not a fan of that in romance.

- The family situation at the end is resolved with one phone call, and I don't quite believe it.

A solid end to the series, and I love that Jesse found his match in Lily-Grace. It wasn't as compulsively readable as the first two books in the series for me personally, but your mileage will likely vary.

Content notes: mentions of past sexual harassment, emotionally abusive ex, harassment, injury

Jesse was 6'7 so I was sold on that. But I just don't think him injuring her dad and treating his grandmother like that was redeemable - for me it wasn't just 'grumpy' or overprotective, it was abuse, and I just didn't want to read about a character that did things like that, even if he was supposedly redeemed.

I'm disappointed because I've loved other books by Rebekah Weatherspoon, but this just wasn't for me.

A " Thorn in the Saddle" is Jesse and Lilly-Grace's story and can be read independently of the previous books of this series.

The nice thing about both of them was that, after initial difficulties at the start (I'll just say: The senior make out incident.), they got involved with each other. - Without high expectations, without reservations and with a large portion of acceptance.
Both are very similar and yet, it is Jessy who lets Lilly-Grace lead the way without losing his own dominance. I liked that very much here.

*eArc provided by NetGalley & Kensington Books in exchange for an honest review.*

Rebekah Weatherspoon remains one of my favorite romance authors. She always manages, especially with her more recent releases, to doing a remarkable job at making you fall in love with the romantic leads. She's also excellent at writing what might, in less capable hands, feel like insta-love and making it feel earned and right and perfect.

And that's true in the third Cowboys of California books, A Thorn in the Saddle. I've loved Jesse as a supporting character in the last two books and was extremely interested to see what she was going to do with him. Especially after finding out that it was doing Beauty and the Beast. (I've really loved the super light grafting on of fairytale stories into this series. It's been really nice and subtle, but present under everything if you look close enough.)

At any rate, I fell even more in love with Jesse and his vulnerabilities, his ability to see his own faults, and willingness to make moves to get better. Not to mention that Weatherspoon has always done a wonderful job at introducing deeply charming women into the Pleasant family. Lily-Grace is no different, and I adore her. They make such a great couple and I'm obsessed with how Weatherspoon bucks a traditional third act breakup because it simply doesn't make sense for these two.

All-in-all, this book rules and I love this series to the moon and back!

A Thorn in the Saddle by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Cowboys of California #3

Elementary school friends meet gain when Lily-Grace returns to Charming, California to lay low and regroup as she decides what her future plan will be. When Jesse Pleasant does something that upsets Lily-Grace, she lets him know just how she feels and the fireworks begin…fireworks that lead to a whole lot more.

What I liked:
* The idea that childhood friends meet and find they are good together as adults and as a couple
* The open honest communication between Lily-Grace and Jesse
* That Jesse realizes he has an anger issue and goes for counseling
* That both main characters confronted and conquered personal fears
* The location on the ranch in California
* Seeing people from previous books
* Wondering if there will be a book for some of the supporting characters
* The great relationship Lily-Grace has with her father
* The friendship that developed before and along with the steamier aspect of the relationship between the main characters

What I didn’t like:
* Dane: the man Lily-Grace dated for five years
* The harassment experienced by Lily Grace at her last job

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more by this author? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3-4 Stars

This book was great for the most part. The only part that was a bit off for me, is that I didn't love the auction part. It felt a little icky. Auctioning black people just feels wrong to me.
Anyway. I did really enjoy Jesse and Lily-Grace a lot. Their banter was entertaining, and the steam was lovely, as can always be expected from this author.

When Jesse Pleasant finds his grandmother in a compromising position with an old friend - and father of his childhood crush, he can't help but lose his temper. And when his old crush Lily-Grace comes back into town, she is not impressed with how Jesse treated her aging father. But after Lily-Grace witnesses Jesse in an awkward moment at a date auction, and Jesse gets help for his anger issues, they end up spending more and more time together.

I was really looking forward to Jesse's book - the strapping, grumpy, misunderstood rancher (who is scared of horses, lol) had me curious from book one. I really appreciated having a MC who went to therapy, and that it happened on the page. He and Lily-Grace did have great chemistry in the end, although it did develop a little abruptly due to the childhood crush trope. It's a relatively conflict-free book (despite the way it started), and sometimes I think that leads to a little lack of tension between characters. Despite this, Weatherspoon still did a good job of not losing too much chemistry.

This was the 3rd book in the Cowboys of California series. While you don't need to read the first two before this book, there are a lot of different characters so it helps to read the series in order.

This is the 3rd book in the “Cowboys Of California” and Jesse Pleasant is the oldest of the Pleasant brothers of their ranch big Rock Ranch. I have read all three books in this series and want more brothers or cousins to read about.

Jesse has been tasked with the family ranch and taking care of everybody and everything. Jesse is a good person; he just lacks people skills and has anger issues. This book has its share of humor and drama. I so loved the scene where Jesse walks in on his grandmother Leona in the throes of passion was a gentlemen caller and gets the shock of his life; nearly gives the man a heart attack. The next day gentleman caller’s daughter Lily-Grace consultant who is a former consultant makes her way into Jesse’s office and lets him have it. Lily is gorgeous with all the curves in the right places. Can Lily-Grace be the calm to the storm in Jesse?

I have always imagined that cowboy romances are not for me. I’m not a huge nature person, have never been big into horses and as such, just assumed that cowboys, as a romance hero archetype, wasn’t really my jam. It wasn’t until Rebekah Weatherspoon released the first book in her Cowboys of California series back in 2020 that I began to question that maybe under the right author, cowboys romances might actually work for me. I was lucky enough to score ARCs for all three books and over the course of the first two books in the series, A Cowboy to Remember and If the Boot Fits, I met the Pleasant family, comprised of rodeo stars, movie stars, and three brothers who run a luxury dude ranch in California.

While the two younger brothers, Zach and Sam lured me in with their wit and charm, it was older brother Jesse who kept me hooked, waiting eagerly for his eventual HEA. And what a fantastic HEA it turns out to be! Large, taciturn, seemingly shy, Jesse is revealed to be the backbone of the Pleasant family. Having shouldered much of the burden of running the family business plus taking care of all the family who still live on the property, including his TV star grandmother, Jesse also has some deep-seeded anger issues. He feels abandoned by his movie star father, who left the running of the ranch in the hands of his first-born son, and to some degree, by his brothers, who come and go at will, living their own lives, pursuing their own dreams, while Jesse is basically left holding things down single-handedly at the ranch.

Jesse is also kind of socially awkward, doesn’t have a whole lot of sexual experience or experience with women in general, and suffers from panic attacks. His anger issues (and possibly his long-held family resentments) cause him to physically lash out when he walks in on his grandmother “entertaining” her new boyfriend. Yiiiiikes doesn’t even begin to cover it and when said boyfriend’s adult daughter, former tech-consultant Lily Grace Leroux, comes over, threatening legal action over the damage caused by Jesse’s out of control anger issues, Jesse knows he needs to make some necessary changes. And so, he goes to therapy and makes actual, conscious changes to better himself.

Now, I’ve read plenty of books where it’s mentioned that the MC (or MCs) went to therapy. What’s great about Jesse getting therapy in this book is that a lot of it is on-page. There are scenes of him in actual therapy sessions, scenes of him reaching out to his therapist when he feels himself reeling emotionally, and even scenes in which he practices the tricks and tools he’s learned in therapy to find some emotional equilibrium. It’s really great and easily one of the best parts of the book, aside from the two main characters.

Speaking of main characters, let’s talk a bit about Lily-Grace Leroux, the FMC. Newly unemployed after leaving her former tech company gig after being sexually harassed by a colleague, and newly single after her ex-boyfriend refused to support her claims of harassment due to being friends with the aforementioned harasser, Lily-Grace leaves her cushy life in San Francisco to return to the small town of Charming, California. Living with her widowed father while trying to figure out her next steps, Lily-Grace is the perfect counterpart to the awkward and reserved Jesse. She’s vivacious and outgoing, brimming with self-confidence, and knows exactly who she is and what she wants, and is not afraid to go after it.

While the two initially butt heads over Jesse attacking Lily-Grace’s father after mistaking a very intimate scene between his grandma and her dad (still cringing at that scene just thinking about it), they quickly form an unexpected bond when Lily-Grace wins him at a charity date auction and Jesse saves Lily-Grace from drowning in a swimming pool. The two quickly decide on an exchange of services – Lily-Grace will give the inexperienced Jesse sex lessons in exchange for Jesse teaching Lily-Grace how to swim.

Sexually inexperienced MMCs getting schooled in sex by FMCs is one of my absolute favorite tropes in romance so it should surprise no one that I ate this book up with a spoon. And to Jesse’s credit, he is a very quick study. If you’ve read a Rebekah Weatherspoon book, you know she brings the heat and so it follows that Jesse and Lily-Grace approach their sex tutorials with the utmost dedication and focus, as any hardworking student would. But for whether Lily-Grace finally learns how to doggy-paddle, well, I don’t want to give it all away, you’ll just have to read the book.

I do want to address some of the content warnings in this book. As I mentioned before, Lily-Grace left San Francisco due to sexual harassment in the workplace, which also caused her to end her relationship with her boyfriend Dane. She and Dane were in a sexually dom-sub relationship (he was the dominant, she was the sub), and having her leave him has not gone over well for Dane. There is a subplot in this book where Dane continually calls and texts Lily-Grace, asking her to come back and resume their relationship. His continued refusal to take Lily-Grace’s feelings into account causes Lily-Grace to reevaluate how harmful that relationship really was, especially when compared to Jesse and his thoughtful, considerate behavior towards her.

Dane’s behavior escalates when he learns Lily-Grace has moved on with Jesse and he hires a few guys to break into Jesse’s house, with the intent to assault him. While the plan is an epic failure and ultimately causes Dane to finally leave Lily-Grace alone, it’s the emotional aftermath of the scene that really resonates. I’ve read a few books recently where something truly catastrophic happened but with very little emotional follow through. Here, though, Jesse and Lily-Grace are fully in their feelings, scared, shaken up, angry, hurt, and then, they talk it out, like actual adults!

If the on page therapy was one of my favorite parts of this book, then the straightforward adult conversations is a very, very close second. There is no game playing, no miscommunication issues, and yes, while Lily-Grace did hide the fact that she was basically being harassed by her ex-boyfriend from Jesse, she explains her reasoning and Jesse is understanding. For a book with a sexual-harassment and creepy ex-boyfriend subplot, the book is actually very calm and soft and doesn’t use these triggering plot points to unnecessarily heighten the tension and drama.

I think by now, if you’re reading this review, you’ve gleaned that I really enjoyed this series and especially this book. I loved the large cast of characters, all messy and fun and relatable in their own ways. I loved the family dynamics, the frank conversations, the relationships between the three brothers. I adored Lily-Grace and to be perfectly honest, never have I related so hard to a MMC like I did to Jesse. I think this might be the last book in the series though I’m not sure and I hope I’m wrong about that because there are the beginnings of a secondary romantic pairing in this book that absolutely deserves its own story. But regardless, if this is the last we see of the Pleasant family from Charming, California, consider me a devout fan of cowboy romances, especially if they’re written by Rebekah Weatherspoon.

Content notes: on-page therapy, on page physical assault, off-page workplace sexual harassment, toxic ex-boyfriend, breaking and entering, FMC falls in a pool and almost drowns;

This book had an interesting premise, but a lackluster execution for my taste. There's a lot of telling instead of showing and it takes me out of the story every time. There's also a lot of filler paragraphs that could have been omitted during the editing stage since it serves little to no purpose to the story and just makes the book longer than it should be.

I’ve waited for this man’s story for what feels like a life time. And it did not disappoint!!! RW just knows her 💩. I’ve been feeling poopy lately and her cowboys, Sam and Jesse, especially, have made me the happiest.

So, get this Jesse comes home from a family trip to find his grandma, Thee Leona Lovell, in the throes of passion. Instead of backing away a begging the heavens for a mind eraser and bleach for his eyes, Zaddy here, cockblocks his grandma and in the process her lover ends up with a broken wrist. Thing is “lover” is Lily-Grace’s dad. Lily-Grace is none other than the girl Jesse’s had a crush since forever who is home trying to figure out her next move because she was S*xually assa*lted by her coworker and her then-boyfriend didn’t believe her so you know after that experience she’s not taking any mans crap. So she storms into his meeting and let’s him know what’s up.

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. We get sweet, sexy, vitiligo rep., women in STEM rep., and Jesse. This MAN!!! He’s so greedy he wanted to have it all. It wasn’t enough for him to look like Morris Chesnut(in my mind) and be 6’7. No!!! This man is also cute, shy, sweet, knows his way around a kitchen and a dance floor, a great swimmer who is down for lessons, hella respectful, a protector, loves movies but will also watch reality t.v. with his baby cousin religiously, eats for 7 people, will shower you in gifts, loves his grandma and Clem(his dog) who he also calls his boo and will give you his 100% and nothing less!!! He has some anger issues, cause no one is perfect, but he’s willing to seek professional help to work on that and he DOES!!! I’m in love!! He’s simply that B.

Also, I know RW keeps saying it’s the last book but what about Lilah? I need her story!!! The set-up was so good I hope we get it in the future!!!

GO GET THE DAMN BOOK!!!