DNF @ halfway point. Not necessarily bad but I couldn’t really get into this. Lots of repetitive dialogue and plot wasn’t holding my attention.

That was pretty darn tootin’ adorable and I’m excited for Book 2!

A few times scenes dragged (one exchange between Millie and her friend Heather seemed to go on about 6 pages too long, trying to engineer a thought-bubble that Millie should be a little more outlaw …)

But overall this was very sweet and hot, and given the state of America right now and the weirdly anti-DEI (to the point of removing words like “woman” and “sex” from government websites) a really refreshing spin to see a librarian campaigning for a more honest representation of history around her town, even if that means her own family’s skeletons getting dragged out for all to see.

Maisey Yates, you’ve done it again!

Maisey Yates is a new author to me. I enjoyed this book very much I am looking forward to the sequel. It was a good romance between the two characters and did not drag out.

With the feel of the Hatfield's and McCoy's, Ms. Yates begins this series telling the Wilder and Talbot story. Rustler Mountain has lots of history about outlaws and killings. Millie Talbot, the town librarian, has always been interested in history. Now she was about to plan the Gold Rush Days. Austin Wilder is the town bad boy. As they begin planning the Gold Rush Days, their defenses come down as each learn something about themselves, and their ancestors. This was a great story! Cannot wait for book two. Thanks to Ms. Yates, Kensington Publishing, and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review this book. All opinions are my own.

This story follows a town rivalery between the outlaws and the lawman but there is a connection between a Wilder and a Talbot. This was a great storyline. I am a huge fan of small town romances so I enjoyed getting more of a westernalized concept. The writing was very repitive we repition of the word mouse and “I am a outaw and they are not”. I feel as though the descrptive of his book could have been better so I could be more into the story. This book is told from both Millia and Austin’s pov.

Millie is a librarian who wants to bring the town’s story to life though she needs help. I loved her quiet personality and I felt connected to her. Though I hated how often the mention of her being a mouse. Then we have Austin who has been caring for his family but as feelings for Millie. There are many side characters in this book and I am excited to read their stories in the future books. The romance is small town, bad boy x good girl, and forced proximity. I liked the romance between the MCs but I do have to say that it did feel a bit rushed.

The ending was well done and overall I enjoyed this book. It felt like a bit of a romeo and juliet situation with this book, I am excited to see where Yates goes with this book as I read a bit of the next book which sounds amazing. Check out this story!

*this arc was sent to me by the publisher to give an honest review in return*

Thank you to Netgalley and Kensington Press for an eARC of this book. All opinions will be my own.

If you like cowboy romance, good girl X bad boy romance tropes, then this could be the book for you.
Personally, I didn't like Millie and Austin together, but the town history aspect was interesting.

Millie is from one of the founding families of Rustler Mountain. Her family is considered one of the good families. She wants to tell the history of the town but first she needs to convince the town council and she needs the votes to get her plan approved. Austin is from one of the founding families of Rustler Mountain. His family is considered one of the bad families of the town. He has no interest in getting involved in town politics. Will the two of them work together to tell the history of the town or will their differences keep them apart? Can two people from “opposite” sides of town find love?
The author does a good job creating a small town with issues. Austin’s great great grandfather was lawless but the town has decided that the entire Wilder family is tainted by that history. I like that Millie is determined to research the actual history regardless of where it takes her. Millie is driven by a love of history and that helps her discover that Austin shares her interest. Their relationship develops naturally and it is very believable. When Millie interacts with Austin’s family, it’s sweet and I enjoyed it. Millie used to be engaged to Michael until he cheated on her. That is an important element of the story. It is a major factor in driving Millie to want to succeed. There is a “bad guy” in this book but I thought that was the weakest part of the story.
This story takes place in Oregon. This is a story of discovery and redemption. This is a small town story about people holding on the their beliefs even in the face of evidence to the contrary. I enjoyed this story. It made me smile. I will read more from this author in the future.

This second week of my March break, I went from sulky to surly and sad. Sad because LIFE and surly because…*elbows up* I slogged through what is a very good novel, litfic, for about 50 pages and gave up. No energy, no will, no desire. When I’m in disgrace with my own concept of how and why and what I should read, I throw up my hands and turn to comfort reads that at least I know I can turn the last page on: Maisey Yates because I had a Rustler Mountain e-galley and Betty because I love Betty and Ring In a Teacup beckoned from the night-stand TBR. They were satisfying in many ways, but Betty wins the comfort wars and, if not for the last ten pages, Ring In a Teacup is as perfect a Betty as you’ll ever read. The Yates had a great first half and moved into “meh” territory for the second. The blurbish details to avoid the summary tedium:

Every year, thousands of people come through Rustler for the rodeo, historic home tours, old-fashioned candy making demonstrations, sharpshooter shows—and to see the site of the 1800s shootout in which notorious outlaw Austin Wilder was killed by Sheriff Lee Talbot. Now Millie Talbot, the sheriff’s descendant, wants to bring back the town’s Gold Rush Days. But she needs the current Austin Wilder’s support to make her dream a reality.

The Wilders are rumored to be as true to their last name as their ancestors. Nonetheless, Austin is agreeable to helping Millie. But he wants something in return. Austin is working to clear his family name by writing the true history of his outlaw ancestors and Millie might just hold the key.

When Millie wrangles Austin into helping plan Gold Rush Days, he figures it’s a chance to get to the truth of the past. . . . But when sparks start to fly between this bad boy and good girl, will either of them come out of it unscathed?

It amazed Lucy how regularly Mr. der Linssen, the handsome Dutch doctor who taught one of her nursing classes, kept turning up in her life. She would bump into him at the hospital, at her home and even in Holland when she went on vacation. If only he knew she existed! But that wasn’t likely, Lucy thought, since far prettier girls were obviously his for the asking…

Yates’s novel is hot to Neels’s cool; Yates’s is full-on internal rumination and Neels is strictly heroine POV, but there are things in common. For this reader, they satisfy a desire to see how they both assert the meaningfulness of hero and heroine joining in every way, physically, psychically, spiritually, in values and humour and the life they want to live, the love they have for each other of equal import, depth, and breadth. These are the keys to great romance, but the execution, ah, that’s where we can judge and find something wanting or something very much wanted “MOAR”. (On a prosaic level, in these cases, Yates and Neels go for the plain-Jane heroine, but Neels couldn’t write a bad boy hero if her pens depended on it. I liked Yates’s “bad-boy” who turned out to be anything but, a reader, writer, library patron, and donner of reading glasses, in bed no less. As for Neels, a massive Dutch doctor, in this case, gentle, kind, twinkly-eyed, occasionally sardonic and, as they all are, cryptic.)

I loved Ring In a Teacup because it offered what Neels does best: though her heroine is “poor, obscure, plain, and little” with a sharp tongue and impressive scowl, surprisingly not an angelic nurse. She’s peevish and most amusing as hero Fraam has that confident, laconic quality Neels heroes share. Another thing I noted during this Betty read is the hero’s surprise appearances when the heroine doesn’t expect him: in this case, when Lucy is helping a pregnant lady birth her babies during a snowstorm. The Neels hero pops up whenever the heroine least expects him and most often when she most needs him: from giving her a ride in the rain, a meal, a rest, a bouquet, to helping her patient give birth.

Ring has some of the best of Betty’s banter, thanks to an ill-humoured heroine and cheery, if not cheerful, hero. Lastly, I’ve never read a Betty or any romance where the heroine is as keen on sleep as our Lucy is: the first time Fraam sees her, during one of his lectures, she’s fast asleep; when they’re baby-birthing, he naps to her crabby protests (he has the good manners to open one blue eye and comment). Bets is at the top of her game, with thorough control over her material. Until the end. When Fraam uses a word that should never appear anywhere and yes, it may be a sign of the Betty times, but it near-ruined this Betty for me. So you’ve been warned. *moue of disappointment*

Yates’s Rustler Mountain was a wonderful read for the first half: Austin is a surprisingly sensitive hero, a man who carries the scars of a little boy always on the out, always considered “bad” by his town. Millie is the opposite: the sheriff’s daughter, town librarian, the goody-two-shoes, prim, proper…but when she pleads her case to Austin, they find a lot in common, which makes Yates’s romance richer and deeper. They love books and history, reading and research: along the way, they discover that everything everyone assumed about the Wilders isn’t and everything everyone expected of the Talbots isn’t either. The truth is more nuanced and compelling and no one is a hero and even villains have nuances. Except Austin is a hero, Millie’s hero, and Millie is the woman who defends the villain so his town must acknowledge his worth.

It’s always important to Yates her protagonists transform internally by realizing truths and asserting a redeemed sense of self: as a final step, they must allow themselves to love and be loved, to see themselves as worthy of love. As a theme, who can fault her? But when it’s expressed by declarative internal rumination, which is what makes up the second half of this her first novel in a new series, “skimming time”…not a strong romance, sadly, no matter how much I liked Austin and Millie and how wonderful their banter in the first half.

Yates’s Rustler Mountain is published by Kensington Books and released on February 25. I received an e-galley, from Kensington Books, via Netgalley. The above is my honest, AI-free opinion.

Rustler Mountain is the premier novel in Maisey Yates Rustler Mountain series. The founding families and the early days of Rustler Mountain, Oregon, have a stranglehold on the community and the descendants of those families. Legend says that Sheriff Lee Talbot brought law and order to the town when he gunned down thief Austin Wilder and captured and hung his brothers for their crimes of robbery, trial not necessary. Librarian Millie Talbot has struggled with the supposed mantle of propriety she feels cloaked in and strangled by perceived expectations.

Millie’s father, the current Sheriff Talbot, dies suddenly. Then, soon after, her fiancé Michael betrays her with Danielle, the town mayor. Having lost her dear mother ten years ago, Millie, as the end of the Talbot line, takes it upon herself to reestablish both the town museum and the Gold Rush Days as her legacy. However, Danielle and members of the town council say there is no money for that, but the soon to be approved budget has a large fund for travel for council members.

Desperate to see her plans come to fruition, Millie visits the brooding heir and namesake to Austin Wilder seeking his backing for her plans. With the encouragement of his siblings and the promise of access to all documents for his own family research, Austin surprises Millie the night of the council meeting, then surprises himself more when he comes to her aid and volunteers to help.

This is such a good story of love and loss, change and redemption, and the very chance to live up to your heart and rise above your roots. With well drawn characters and rustic mountain settings, this first book in the series does not disappoint. I very much enjoyed this book and I do recommend it!

Maisey Yates never disappoints me. I love her books so much. For me, she is the queen of cowboy books. 🥹

This time, the book was everything I love reading about. The fmc is so sweet and gentle. I love this type of fmc. Maisey knows how to write them perfectly. Oh, I can’t say anything bad about the MMC. He’s literally so hot. I love so much good girl x bad boy trope. That’s why I love their chemistry. Every scene about them give me butterflies. I couldn’t stop fangirling about how good are their scenes. The storyline was well placed and I can’t wait to read about what happened to another characters. I’m so excited to read the next book.

The beginning had really intrigued me but then the thoughts of the MCs became extremely repetitive. Very hyper focused on their families' histories and good vs. bad. I feel like the inner dialogue needed to be edited down and have more verbal dialogue that didn't focus on the topics I just mentioned.

I'm a big fan of Maisey Yates and this book did not disappoint! This was such a fun, easy read. It had great character growth and well developed characters. The writing and conflict were on point making me devour this book. There was a lot of good emotion. I absolutely love when rival families have characters that fall in love. It's so Romeo and Juliet with a much happier ending. I loved the history of the town. There was such a good connection between Austin and Millie. They could be my favorite Maisey Yates hero and heroine. This was all around a great story to take me away from every day life. I can't wait for the next book in the series. Huge thanks to Kensington Publishing and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book. All opinions are my own.

Rustler Mountain by Maisey Yates

⭐️⭐️ 2/5

Ok … honestly, I’m being really generous giving this a 2 when I kind of actually wanted to give it a 1. However, I am fully aware of how difficult it is to write a book and have the courage to put it out into the world, so I am bumping my rating up to a 2.

This was … rough. I struggled HARD to get through this one. It put me into a little bit of a reading slump, and I self-admittedly love contemporary western romances. This book takes place in a little town in Oregon called Rustler Mountain, where back in the 1800s, outlaws and sheriffs reigned supreme. Our story follows the descendants of said outlaws and sheriff as they navigate generational stereotypes and their “forbidden” love.

Right off the bat, this book felt very inauthentic to me. Nobody talks like that in real life. If you have any qualms about the words “mousy,” “outlaw,” “good girl,” or “dangerous,” maybe don’t read this book. And if you don’t already, you definitely will afterwards because they’re used no less than 237,459,358,327,523 times. Let’s just say if I had made it a drinking game, I would have been on the floor before Chapter 3.

This is something I feel like the editor should have caught and said something about. This kind of repetitiveness in a book does not reinforce the theme, but rather beats a dead horse and makes a book seem scripted and poorly written. Let. It. Go. We get it. Millie is “mousy” (even though not a single character trait about her is mousy at all). She’s “Very Good Girl Millie Talbot” — I’m not kidding, she actually gets called that — and I hated her for it. It isn’t Millie’s fault, really. She was just written terribly.

Same goes for Austin on the other side. He’s dangerous. He’s an outlaw. Blah, blah, blah. This is the 21st century, but apparently this town still talks like it isn’t. Now, I am from a small town. I understand generational stereotypes. They are a very real thing. These characters, however, are the reason they are. They played into them every step of the way and created their own conflict.

As far as the writing itself goes, it was very blocky. I’m not sure how else to describe it. There was lots of filler and very little dialogue. For example, our characters would be in the middle of a conversation, then we would get pages and pages of repetitive inner monologue, where the character thinks the same thing in ten different iterations, before finally picking back up with the conversation. It was so blocky that I would legitimately forget what conversation was even about before the filler started. Then, just about every other paragraph had some witty saying or wisdom tidbit that was trying way too hard to be a profound realization or quotable moment, and it simply did not work. Quite frankly, it’s just bad writing.

I do want to say that I didn’t totally hate this book. I know it seems that way, but I didn’t. I actually really enjoyed the Wilder family as a whole. They intrigued me enough that I might be willing to read their stories when they come out. Carson and Perry intrigued me, as did Flynn and Jessie Jane and Cassidy and Dalton. It’s exactly the kind of thing I would eat up if the writing improves. I would be willing to give it another shot. Just one more shot, but I enjoyed the characters enough to maybe try. I also didn’t hate Millie or Austin as much by the end. If they had been that way the whole time, I might have enjoyed this book a little more.

Thank you to NetGalley, Maisey Yates, and Kensington Publishing for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions stated are my own. This review will only be shared on my Goodreads account, as I don’t see any point in flaming a book I was gifted on my social media, and most of my notes are for the publisher anyway.

Based in a modern day western town living with the deeds of the past. Millie Talbot, the librarian, and Austin Wilder, the rancher come together to bring back Gold Rush Days. Talbots were the good guys and Wilders were the bad guys. It was a clash of good versus bad with one trying to redo history. I enjoyed reading the book. First time reading this author. Will continue to read her books.
I received an ARC from NetGalley and Kensington and leaving a review by my own choice.

I was actually blessed to be reading this book while on a cruise with the author! So obviously I might be a little biased. Because I truly love Maisey Yates and everything that she writes.
I absolutely loved the main characters. Millie Talbot is the local librarian. She’s been a tease most of her life for just being different. She is diligently working on updating Hold Rush Days. But in doing so she’s seeking help from one of the town, bad boys, Austin Wilder. Austin also had his reputation with the town. But it was mostly due to his ancestors and everyone automatically thinking that he must be like them.
Austin and Millie definitely have a romantic connection. One that they both try to squelch. They are working on this project quite closely together. And they definitely find some buried secrets.
If you wanna know how this one turns out, I would suggest that you pre-order it right now. Comes out February 25 2025.

Wow do I have an outlaw obsession now? This book is very cute and hallmark like but it also has some heat and passion, everything I love. The parallel between the characters and the ancestors was such a great premise and I’m not going to lie, the letters had me tearing up. I am eagerly awaiting book two now.

One of my favorite themes is small-town romances. I just love all the history a small town has. How everyone knows everyone else's business or think they do. Who doesn't love a good nosy town.

I found Rustler Mountain to be my kind of book. I really enjoy so much about it. I love the characters and the whole town itself. I felt so bad for Austin. He's seen as a bad boy but there is so much more to him. I don't blame him for being a bit mad at the town and how they feel about him and his family. Austin is a really good guy, and it shows.

He's the perfect other half for Millie. She's slightly uptight and very much a good girl. She needs a bit of wild in her life. I like her and I'm glad she sees the real Austin, not the person others think he is. We all need a little bad with our good.

Together these two work to try and put the past where it belonged, in the past. Sadly, Austin at times couldn't forget about the past and I understood but wanted to push him a little to get over it. As a start to a new series, it's a good one. You'll want the other characters stories right away. So, for me instead of looking at the past, I'm all about the future and the next book.

BOOK: RUSTLER MOUNTAIN
AUTHOR: MAISEY YATES
PUB DATE: FEBRUARY 252025
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REVIEW
Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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THINGS I LIKED
1. The cover
2. The cover
3. The setting and storyline. It was interesting to read about the town and the founders and their descendants' drama.
4. I liked the characters individually.
5. I liked what the FMC, Millie was doing with the town's history.
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THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE
1. There was no chemistry between Millie and Austin.
2. Austin was kinda annoying clinging to the past.
3. I liked the setting, but some of the characters were quite annoying.
4. I expected it have an oomph, but I didn't get it
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This book was okay and it was not boring, it's not just my favorite

Maisey Yates launches her new series with an enemies-to-lovers, good-girl-bad-boy romance that had me happily turning pages from start to finish.

I've always found it hard to resist a fictional bad boy. Make him a bad boy with a well-used library card, a burning desire to uncover the truth about his much-maligned ancestor, and write a book about it? Oh, and for bonus points, give him a soft spot for the good-girl librarian? It's safe to say that the present day Austin Wilder has me well and truly hooked.

And then there's prim and proper Millie Talbot, the quiet librarian who has never quite been able to reach the high standards set by her family...or the town. It's so much fun to watch Millie fall for Austin as she slowly embraces her own dreams and desires (a little spice in the stacks, anyone?) and comes to grips with uncovered truths about her family while also battling her nemesis and her ex to resurrect the town's Gold Rush Days.

Rustler Mountain shows that perception is not always the truth. Yates has created a small town filled with intriguing characters, plenty of complications, and a revered claim to fame that revolves around one particular historical event that two generations later still colors how the present-day descendants are viewed. But what if those plaques at the town limits and the widely attended Gold Rush Days got it wrong?

I am all in for Maisey Yates' Rustler Mountain and already looking forward to book two, Outlaw Lake, a friends-to-lovers story that I can't wait to get my hands on. Bring on the Wilders!
4.5 stars
ARC received from Kensington via Netgalley
Fair and unbiased review

I love, LOVED this opposites attract, small town, enemies to lovers story that sees Austin Wilder, the namesake of his Rustler Mountain, Oregon home town outlaws teaming up with Millie Talbot, the local librarian to try to uncover the truth behind what happened in the past and redeem his family's reputation.

Were Austin's family really the bad guys and was Millie's sheriff ancestor really the good guy? Of course sparks fly and things get steamy as these two figure out if they might be able to put aside their family differences, organize the town's Gold Rush Days festival and forge a new future together.

Highly recommended for fans of authors like Penny Reid and her Green Valley series and fantastic on audio narrated by Jennifer Mack. I can't wait for more in this series featuring Austin's siblings! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!