Cowboy Casual (The Calloway Ranch Series)

3/5 ⭐️ 2/5 🌶️ This being my first ever cowboy romance I was super excited for this book. While there were elements I liked, I do think towards the end of the book it was lacking a bit in depth of the plot. Here’s what I liked: 🩷The cowboy aesthetic especially the fact that Blaire’s grandmother owns a strawberry farm 🍓 The nickname Colt has for our girl…Strawberry 😍🤭 💙Colt’s dirty mouth 🌻 Supporting characters especially Ruby 🐎 The pacing in the book What I didn’t like: ⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️ 🌻 The climax: this book was great for the most part, it does feel like 55% onward it’s mostly Blaire and Colt making up for lost time. But when it came to the major conflict and why Blaire left 10 years ago when being confronted by her ex fiancé, and father, to go back to her privileged life it falls short, at least to me. ⭐️ Miscommunication trope: okay don’t get me wrong I can handle a bit of miscommunication, however when it’s taking premise of the whole book and is part of the climax I’m not for it. Colt and Blaire could have communicated with one another very earlier on in the book of why they broke up 10 years ago. Yet us readers are having to go back and forth with these two talking about how they wish they never split up and wish things were or have been different yet they both don’t address this until the last few chapters of the book. 🍓 Then comes the matter that Colt and Blaire were high school sweethearts. They were together as teens, yet 10 years later they still remember the way the other tasted? That just seemed so unbelievable to me. The connection and the love made sense that doesn’t go or fade as quickly, or the fact that nothing else makes sense but them being together, I can handle that and that is believable. Especially since they both have tried to be in different relationships over the past 10 years. But the lines like “I still remember the taste of him” no, please girl because it’s been like 10 years 🥴. 🤠 The reason why Blaire left in the first place. Okay, I understand the reasoning 10 years ago, Colt was a child being blackmailed by his girlfriend’s father. However, for her father to think that move was still going to work when his daughter who is 28 now, is actually going to make her go with you??? I kept thinking Blaire is a grown adult at this point if she wants to “throw away” the future her father intended for her she has every right to do so especially when it was affecting her mental health. ❤️ Ruby’s mother, Becca. While several people tell Blaire Ruby’s mom wasn’t ready to be a mother and tell her that’s the reason why she left. We find out that not the whole truth, while it’s part of it the real reason she left was because she couldn’t compete with a ghost for Colt’s undying affection and love anymore. Colt would say Blaire’s name while he was asleep, he stated Becca would just lay awake at night staring up at the ceiling. I think perhaps Ruby’s mom would have never left if she wasn’t competing with Blaire’s ghost. Now that being said we don’t know the circumstances of how Becca and Colt’s relationship started. For all us reader know, they could have had a one night stand along comes Ruby and they try to make it work until Becca realizes Colt is still in love with another woman, and her being in the picture would never work. Or Colt tried to move on from Blaire by starting another relationship and that happened to be with Becca. All and all we don’t know the full circumstances of that relationship, we do know Colt does take accountability for his part in that relationship and his faults.