Review: The Cowboy’s Heir by Mary Sue Jackson

Author: Mary Sue Jackson
Pages: 249

Chelsea Karnes has dreamed of moving out west to “wide open spaces” ever since reading her first cowboy romance at age ten. So when Chelsea gets offered a teaching position in an “alternative” elementary school in Texas she sees it as fate’s design and goes all in. Even hooking up with a cowboy on her preparation trip to find a place to live.

After a childhood spent basically screwing-up everything he cared about, Parker Trent is now a careful man. He’s inherited a sizeable dairy farm from his father and prides himself on the purity of his milk and the purity of his dating record: he only dates tourists. But when his dairy farm’s accounts are called into question and his hot hookup from the summer turns up—pregnant—as the alternative school’s new kindergarten teacher, not only is his dating record broken, but his world is turned upside down.

Chelsea is perfectly happy raising the baby on her own, but Parker refuses to fail at fatherhood. The more time they spend together, the more Parker is determined to show he can be the father their child needs. Recruiting himself to help with the school’s adaptive animal program—the program Chelsea happens to run—seems like a chance to show Chelsea that he means business when it comes to parenting and to get him back into her good graces after his less than excited reaction to their bundle of joy.

But spending time with Chelsea has Parker longing to be more than just a father…for the first time in his life he’s wondering what it would be like to be a husband too.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The blurb of this book is crazily long. Anyone could get the idea that this story is saturated with different plots and lots of character development. That impression couldn’t have been more misplaced. This has been a pain to read in many levels…

We put on our stetsons and cowboy boots to travel to a small town in Texas, where Chelsea, the newcomer, has just got a position as a kindergarten teacher. Her first night there, she goes to a bar and meets Parker, the cowboy by day and hunk by all hours. They present each other and, in less than you can say potato, they start kissing and getting all handy. This ends in an unexpected pregnancy (Chelseas’s, duh!!). Too bad she doesn’t even know where the guy lives or his surname. It seems motherhood is a challenge she will face alone… unless Fate has other plans…

This book is so bad, I don’t know where to start. I guess I could talk about the story, but… what story?? The most interesting and suspenseful part of the book is knowing if a cow is going to give more or less milk. Honest! There is nothing else that could keep the reader on turning pages. Nothing remotely interesting at least. We are presented with a lot of strange plot threads: the pregnancy, the romance, the Trent family, the problems of the dairy, the new animal program on Chelsea’s school… A bunch of ideas thrown together that are pretty messy and very badly developed. So, so badly that most of them are incomplete. Why do you introduce so many plots if you are going to forget about them? If the romance were mindblowing I could forgive it, but taking into account it is horrible… at least give me something else, don’t you think?

I guess the focus is on the pregnancy and that Chelsea was facing it as a single mother due to the fact she didn’t know how to contact Parker. Sadly, it starts in a very poor and infurating manner. How can Chelsea be surprised about her pregnancy? You had UNPROTECTED sex with a person you had just met. The only thing you knew about the guy was his name. Getting a baby is actually the best case scenario. Or STDs have been eradicated and I haven’t got the memo? I don’t think so. It baffles me how normal this book makes having unsafe sex with a stranger. It even hints about being Parker’s MO. Not two chapters into the book and my blood was already boiling. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

And if you think we could count on the characters to save this mess… you are wrong. What an annoying bunch of human beings. I will start with Chelsea. Could she be more of a whiner? I get she is used to doing everything by herself, but her inability to accept kindness is madenning. She gets so angry with Parker everytime he tries to help her. Yes, it is bad form to go behind her back to rearrange her life (for the better), but that doesn’t grant her the freedom to lash out like that. And the hypocrisy of this woman is boundless!!! She complaints about Parker’s antics, but she does exactly the same to him several times. And she has the nerve to get angry when Parker doesn’t like that? I can’t stomach her.

And Parker… well… he is slightly better. But just a little bit. If you don’t like Chelsea getting angry when you help her, I guess you have lost the right of being angry when she helps you. I have just realized the book is just a dance about who is angry at a time. They both take turns, so during most of the book at least one of them is pissed at the other. So much fun. Horrible couple. That makes the sex scenes (the copy/paste to get more pages) unbearable.

Yes, I have had too many “Kill me now!!” moments while reading this book. I always try to find something positive, but this time I can’t save anything. Let’s hope next books on my list are better, because the last ones are making me rethink about the getting up-to-date with my NetGalley reviews…

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