Blog Tour - The Last Cowboy in Texas by Katie Lane

Title: The Last Cowboy in Texas
Series: Deep in the Heart of Texas #7
Author: Katie Lane
Release Date: December 16, 2014

Country music princess Starlet Brubaker has a sweet tooth for moon pies and cowboys: both are yummy-and you can never have just one. Now Beckett Cates may not be a cowboy, but he certainly has the heart, soul-and body-to whet her appetite. He's a sexy ex-Marine with a touch hotter than the scorching Texas sun and arms strong enough to catch her when she lands into trouble.
Playing bodyguard to America's sweetheart isn't easy for Beckett. But falling for her sure is. Unfortunately, Starlet has a reputation for keeping a guy or two wrapped around her finger and Beckett refuses to be anybody's backup. So now it's up to Starlet to prove that she's put her cowboy-crazy days behind her. Otherwise, she'll be singing solo instead of living in harmony with the man who's loved her even before her fame and fortune.

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"Bramble was a happily-ever-after kind of place. A place where hearts healed. A place where dreams came true. A perfect place to call home."

*Sigh!* This book made me want to move to the South; all the southern charm, the neighborly gossip, the true friendships, and of course the HOT cowboys. 

 

Beckett is not only the hero of the story; he is also a southern cowboy and former Marine. Ovaries explode! He is caring to a fault and has only recently returned home after a tour in Afghanistan. Star Bentley, the famous country singer is hiding from herself. Formerly known as Starlet Brubaker, she turned herself into a world famous singer who did what everyone else wanted or expected of her. She had a rough childhood and was a small town girl at heart. Being kidnapped and ending up coming home was one of the best things that ever happened to her. 

I loved the small town feel of this book. Everybody knew everybody’s business, but that is what kept the town running. I loved how we got to see so many different townsfolk and their issues as well. 

The tension between Beckett and Starlet was sizzling. There was always an underlying lust accompanying their dislike for one another. The jungle room scene was amazing! But of course there is a thin line between love and hate.

  

This book really had it all; it was funny, charming, sexy, sweet, and full of action. There were so many twists and turns that I did not expect. And there were so many cowboys!

“Henhouse rule number fifty-one states: Never let a good cowboy get away.”

This was a fantastic read and I couldn’t put it down!

~ Review byTiffany

I’m not shy about my love of cowboys, which is exactly why I was excited to read The Last Cowboy in Texas. Throw cowboy in the title and I am all in and, while I ultimately enjoyed this tale of Country Music’s Sweetheart, Star Bentley, and her ex-Marine, Texas hunk of man-meat, Beckett Cates, I have to admit, I struggled to love it.

 

Starlet Brubaker left her small-town life behind to become Star Bentley, waif-thin, famous and with a taste for hot-and-sexy cowboys. When she encounters Beckett Cates, a not-so-welcome blast from her past, and sees how much he’s changed physically, she can’t help but be attracted to him. Especially when he’s hell bent on protecting her from the threat lurking in the background.

 

Beckett doesn’t want to fall for the sweet Star – she’s not the Starlet he remembered, not that he liked her that much back then either – but in the course of keeping her safe, it seems he has no choice. But when a secret from her past surfaces and Beckett is left feeling like he was played, it’s up to Starlet to prove that he’s her first, and only, choice.

 

I wanted to love this book, and the blurb was very catchy. But having finished the book, I feel a little misled. It’s not that the blurb was wrong, but the story was quite different to what I was expecting.

 

Perhaps if I had read the earlier books in this series I would have better understood what was going on, and who everyone was. It’s not that it can’t be read standalone – I managed just fine, and I think the author did an excellent job of dropping vital information from earlier books into the story in an unobtrusive way – it’s just that there were so many characters and threads to this story. And it made for very stop/start reading. Every time I would start to connect with, and feel for, Star and Becky, a new chapter would start and would follow a different secondary character, and I’d find myself wishing I could skip ahead to the parts with the characters I actually wanted to read about.

 

Don’t get me wrong; the book itself was interesting, if a little predictable, in its own way. Each character brought in new information that ultimately fed the overall story; it’s just that I wanted a story about a singer and her love/hate relationship with her bodyguard, and none of the extra. The consequence of having an overload of characters was being unable to love many of them and feeling that Starlet and Beckett’s story was a little rushed and a little incomplete.

 

The Last Cowboy in Texas is a good book about small-town life, and the gossip that feeds it. It’s a good book about family, and the things we are willing to put up with because of that blood bond. It’s a good book about love, and the lengths a person is willing to go to find it and keep it. And although it was too much story for one book, it was a good book that I liked reading. I just wish I could have loved it.

 

The Last Cowboy in Texas is the seventh book in the Deep in the Heart of Texas series and can be read standalone. No cliffhanger.

~ Review by Beth

Katie Lane is the USA Today bestselling author of the Deep in the Heart of Texas and Hunk for the Holiday series.  Katie lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and when she isn't writing, enjoys reading, going to the gym, golfing, traveling, or just snuggling next to her high school sweetheart and cairn terrier Roo.

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