Although I’ve lived in large cities most of my life, I enjoy romances set in small towns and have a particular fondness for romances set in small Texas towns. Even a town filled with over-the-top characters can work for me if the hero and heroine are engaging and have a compelling romance. Sadly, this book doesn’t fit into that category. I found this an uneven read, and very easy to put down.

Hope Scroggs is the most popular girl in Bramble, Texas. The former cheerleader went to Hollywood with dreams of becoming a movie star. After years of trying, and nothing better than a hemorrhoid commercial to her credit, the town’s sweetheart decided to return to Bramble and marry her high school steady Slate Calhoun. In the author’s prior book, Going Cowboy Crazy, Hope’s identical twin Faith – a twin Hope didn’t know existed – met Slate before Hope returned to Bramble and the two fell in love. .

As this book opens, Hope is miserable at Faith and Slate’s wedding reception. Hope is even more miserable when her best friend’s brother, Colt Lomax, appears at the reception. .

Colt, the town bad boy, left town years earlier. Everyone in town assumes he’s a motorcycle bum, and has never made anything of himself. Colt has been attracted to Hope since they were kids, but instead of acting on it, tormented her throughout school. .

It’s obvious early on that there’s a strong attraction between Hope and Colt, and has been for years, which made me really not understand her bitterness over Slate. Their romance also proceeded very slowly. Every time Hope would give in to the attraction and begin to get undressed, someone would appear. After a while, this got old. .

Bramble is one of those small towns where everyone meddles in everyone else’s business, and they especially seem to meddle in Hope’s life. For some reason everyone decides that Hope is pregnant. Despite her protests, they refuse to believe her and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out who the father is. Even though Hope never had a TV series or appeared in a movie, the townspeople assume she was a success (clearly they have no access to the internet) because she is the town sweetheart. .

I didn’t read the prior book, so had no history with these characters. Maybe if I had I would have liked it more. It’s not that I was confused, I just didn’t like it. .

I found this very easy to put down, but then a strange thing happened. A little over halfway through the book, I became more interested in the story, particularly in Hope’s relationship with her sister and her best friend. After spending weeks reading the first half, I read the last half in a day. The end saved this book from an even lower grade, but didn’t make up for an uneven overall story. If not reading this for review, I never would have made it to the ending. .