RESTLESS RANCHER

A destitute rancher betrayed by the people he trusted is brought back to life by a no-nonsense accountant with a troubled past.

Family betrayals drive the plot of the second book in Ryan’s (The Me I Used To Be, 2019, etc.) contemporary Western series about women who were raised together as virtual sisters while their mothers worked at the Wild Rose Ranch, a Nevada brothel. Sonya Turner, one of them, is a forensic accountant looking for a radical change of pace after being passed over for a promotion at her firm. When her sister Roxy invites Sonya to join her in Montana to restore a dilapidated home and neglected ranch, she jumps at the chance. Sonya loves “the wide open spaces, hills that rose to mountains in places, and the crisp clean air,” but she soon realizes that the owner, Austin Hubbard, is in need of renewal himself. Disowned by his father, dumped by his girlfriend, and drinking way too much, he has just about given up. Sonya helps lift Austin out of helplessness, showing him how to stand up for himself against his ruthless and greedy father while he helps Sonya support her abused mother. Austin's and Sonya’s enemies generate hair-raising, violent plot turns, but Austin's father is such a cliché readers will expect him to mutter something like, “I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids” when he finally gets his comeuppance.

A sweet romance wrapped around an inheritance mystery and surrounded by family trauma.