This Rec League comes from Elyse:
Heroes with Glen Powell from Twisters vibes (kinda cocky cowboy with secret heart of gold). Bonus points for found family
Shana: I haven’t seen Twisters but cowboys are my jam. I suggest The Cowboy Whisperer by Sabrina Sol ( A | BN | K ) and Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Cowboys of California series. Beverly Jenkins’s has some cocky cowboys too: Something Like Love ( A | BN | K | AB ) and her Old West series might work for this.
Have any of you seen Twisters? Know of any romances that match Elyse’s character request? Let us know in the comments!
I can’t pull titles right now—rushing through my morning routine, and I haven’t done Wordle yet, lol—but I would recommend browsing Maisey Yates’s backlist. She has written a ton of contemporary cowboy romances—most of them with the word “cowboy” helpfully included in the title, and a lot of her heroes are outwardly very confident & charming but also eventually reveal hidden depths. Ditto for cowboy romances by Genevieve Turner.
I’ll think on it more but Linda Howard has 2 that come to mind: “Running Wild” about a woman running running from a stalker (who she went on 2 dates with) and finds herself employed as a cook for a ranch owner and his crew of wranglers. She learns to cook as she goes along. Also “Heartbreaker”, about wealthy rancher’s daughter who inherits ranch next to successful, hot rancher who she had a huge crush on when she was young/
Elsie Silver’s Chestnut Springs series is wonderful. It starts with FLAWLESS (available in KU) about a young woman starting her career in her father’s PR firm who gets stuck (I wanted to say “saddled”) with fixing a professional bull rider’s PR disaster. He of course grew up on a ranch that his family still runs, and the remainder of the series are about his family (and hers), some blood, some found.
I enjoyed Maggie Gates’ Griffith Brothers series that starts with DUST STORM (available in KU) where a city women gets stuck on a ranch for professional reasons and has to live with a single dad. Lots of family here.
I also really enjoyed Lorraine Heath’s Texas Trilogy, an historical that starts with TEXAS DESTINY.
All three of these have great found family elements. I’m not particularly drawn to cowboy stories, but these ones all pulled me in despite myself. The cocky cowboy with a heart of gold is strong in all of these.
I’ve also heard great things about Molly O’Keefe’s series that starts with SEDUCED but have’t started it yet.
One of my favorite memories is visiting my Dad’s VFW post & chatting about the “westerns” piled on the desk of the post commander. Westerns by writers like Maisey Yates and Joan Johnston. He preferred the ones with former military cowboys so I don’t know if they feature the cowboys you’re looking for, but an 89yo ex-Marine gave them a big thumbs up.
@DonnaMarie I love this story. I can almost smell what I presume was a LOT OF paneling in the office!!
Cate C Wells – Against a Wall
Lorelei James has several cowboy series that I enjoyed-though not sure about “heart of gold” for some of the cowboys. The much missed Kari Lynn Dell has some great cowboy books, full of emotion and a great sense of setting.
Kate Pearce has a couple of series about ranching families in Northern California. I think both series are complete and there are five or six books in both series (which are set in the same general location and characters will cross over between books). I would read the Morgan ranch books first and then the series about the Miller family second. Some of the heroes are also ex-military if that is of interest. She also has a shorter series about retired marines who are living and working on the family ranch that belongs to one of them. I think that one is 3 books. I enjoyed all of them.
Some old favorites are the various cowboys in Lorelei James’ Rough Riders series and her Blacktop Cowboys series. I think that I found the Rough Riders books because of a recommendation on this site for well written erotica, during the furor about Fifty Shades of Gray.
Another much older favorite is Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. The hero is actually an ex football player, but the book is set in Texas after he has retired and although he isn’t really a cowboy, he leans into the Texas cowboy persona. I’m not sure how well this one holds up (I think it was first published in the 1990s, but I know I enjoyed it when I read it and the hero has stuck with me.)
Tule publishes a huge number of cowboy books. They have fictional communities in Texas and Montana where various authors set their books. There are so many that I can’t say much about the individual books, but browse those sections of the website and you’ll find everything from sweet to spicy. In my own books, I tend to go for less cocky heroes, but Charming the Billionaire Cowboy and The Billionaire Cowboy’s Proposition have cockier heroes who are trying to figure out how to live their lives after their family wins a huge lottery.
Sarah Mayberry actually has a series with Tule that includes cowboys—the Carmody family has a ranching family, including a sister who is a helicopter pilot. I think she also has a cowboy story that is part of a multi author rodeo series with them.
The prolific Caitlin Crews has two series Cold River Ranch and Kittredge Ranch. Three books in each series. Loved both.
I’m going through a re-read of my Vivian Arend books and realized there were more in the series and branch out series. I started with the 6-pack ranch stories. I believe the first book may be free.
My favorite gay cowboy romance is Looking for Trouble by Misha Horne – historical mm. It’s a kinky, sloooow burn romance between a taciturn ranch owner and the cocky young nere-do-well from Chicago that he impulsively hires.
The pacing is a little off – probably didn’t need quite so many scenes of longing, flirting and farm chores before the payoff (so to speak). But the chemistry between the h/h is off the charts and the hea is emotionally satisfying.
Not for everyone but definitely worth checking out if you like well written discipline kink and/or want to read a consensual woodshed scene.
Also, if like me you didn’t see the new Twisters, here’s more about Glen Powell’s character (Glen Powell is so good at being manly, but also sensitive.”)
https://www.vogue.com/article/glen-powell-tyler-owens-twisters-manic-pixie-dream-guy
@SBSarah, you are not wrong.
Not really a cowboy fan, but I read & enjoyed both Lorelei James’s & Sarah Mayberry’s cowboy series.
I just wanted to show up and mention that Heaven, Texas is one of the few SEP novels that I’ll NEVER reread. IIRC, the “hero” piles on the humiliation for the heroine, and I just never managed to get past that. And the big gesture at the end? Just a cheap maraschino on a shit sundae.
I really like Jennifer Ashley’s Riding Hard series about a family of stunt riders, and Cheyenne McCray’s older Riding Tall series.