My letter “C” pick for this year’s A To Z Book Challenge was CASH by Jessica Peterson. This is (obviously) a cowboy romance and book one of the Lucky River Ranch series.

Mollie Luck just lost her father whom she’s been estranged from for years. He owned a very successful ranch three hours away from her home in Dallas, and since she’s his sole heir to inherit the property, she plans to sell off the ranch in order to finance a business venture. Unfortunately, there’s some contention at the reading of the will as his ranch foreman (a handsome cowboy named Cash) tells the lawyer the he was promised the ranch by Mollie’s late father. The will disagrees, leaving it all to Mollie under one stipulation – she must live an entire year on the ranch before she can inherit. Cash is determined to scare her away with the reality of hard-working ranch life. Mollie may be a city girl, but she rises to the occasion.

All in all this is a sweet and steamy read with lots of juicy detail but no real surprises. It was predictable, and honestly could have done with some real stakes. It started out as enemies-to-lovers, but they got over that within a chapter or two as they both decide that the other is hot and very soon both come to realize the other person has lots of good qualities. There are no real roadblocks to their relationship as he quickly wins over her anti-cowboy mom and they also easily figure out a way to blend their different lifestyles with no real friction. A good love story should have you rooting for these two to make it work and there was simply nothing to root for when there was nothing making their love a challenge.

The book did have some great humor, tons of spice, a surly cinnamon-roll guy, and a plucky, fun-loving girl. I liked it fine, but don’t really feel the need to return to the ranch for the rest of the series. Four stars.