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A chicken will never break your heart.

Not that you can’t love a chicken. There are some people in this world who can love just about anything. But a chicken will never love you back. When you look deep into their beady little eyes, there’s not a lot of warmth there—just an avarice for worms and bugs and, if it’s a rooster, a lot of suppressed anger and sexual frustration.

They don’t return your affection in any way.

Expectations, relationship-wise, are right at rock bottom.

That’s why Libby Brown decided to start a chicken farm. She wanted some company, and she wanted a farm, but she didn’t want to go getting attached to things like she had in the past. She’d been obsessed with farms since she was a kid. It all started with her Fisher Price Farmer Joe Play Set: a plastic barn, some toy animals, and a pair of round headed baby dolls clutching pitchforks like some simpleminded version of American Gothic. A Fisher Price life was the life for her.

Take Atlanta—just give her that countryside.

Libby had her pickup half unloaded when her new neighbor showed up. She didn’t see him coming, so he got a prime view of her posterior as she bent over the tailgate, wrestling with the last of her chrome dinette chairs. The chair was entangled in the electric cord from the toaster, so he got a prime introduction to her vocabulary too.

“Howdy,” he said.

Howdy? She turned to face him and stifled a snort. Halloween was three months away, but this guy was ready with his cowboy costume. Surely no one actually wore chaps in real life, even in Wyoming. His boots looked like the real thing, though; they were worn and dirty as if they’d kicked around God-knows-what in the old corral, and his gray felt Stetson was all dented, like a horse had stepped on it. A square, stubbled chin gave his face a masculine cast, but there was something soft about his mouth that added a hint of vulnerability. She hopped down from the tailgate. From her perch on the truck, he’d looked like the Marlboro Man on a rough day, but now that they were on the same level, she could see he was kind of cute—like a young Clint Eastwood with a little touch of Elvis.

“Howdy,” he said again. He actually tipped his hat and she almost laughed for the first time in a month.

“I’m Luke Rawlins, from down the road,” he continued. The man obviously had no idea how absurd he looked, decked out like a slightly used version of Hopalong Cassidy. “Thought maybe you’d need some help moving in. And I brought you a casserole—Chicken Artichoke Supreme. It’s my specialty.” He held out a massive ceramic dish with the pride of a caveman returning from the hunt. “Or maybe you could use a hand getting that chair broke to ride.” Great. She had the bastard son of John Wayne and Martha Stewart for a neighbor. And he thought he was funny.

Worse yet, he thought she was funny.

“Thanks.” She took the casserole. “I’m Libby Brown. Are you from that farm with the big barn?”

“Farm? I’m not from any farm.” Narrowing his eyes, he slouched against the truck and folded his arms.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

 “What makes you say that?”

“You calling my ranch a farm, that’s what.” A blade of wheatgrass bobbed from one corner of his mouth as he looked her up and down with masculine arrogance. “There’s no such thing as a farm in Wyoming,” he said.

“Well, what do you call this, then?” Libby gestured toward the sun-baked outbuildings that tilted drunkenly around her own personal patch of prairie.

“A ranch.”

“That’s not what I call it. I call it ‘Lackaduck Farm.’” She pointed to the faded letters arched over the barn’s wide double doors. “That’s what the people before me called it too. It’s even painted on the barn.”

“Yeah, well, they weren’t from around here either. They were New Yorkers and got smacked on the bottom and sent home by Mother Nature. Thought they’d retire out here on some cheap real estate and be gentleman farmers. They didn’t realize there’s a reason the real estate’s cheap. It’s tough living.” He looked her in the eye, no doubt judging her unfit for a life only real men could endure. “You think you’re up to it?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.” Libby hoped she sounded a lot more confident than she felt. “This is what I’ve always wanted, and I’m going to make it work.”

Libby Brown is just sick and tired of men. All men. Working as a big city journalist has its rewards but her life — most especially her love life — has taken the joy out of even the best career accomplishments. So pulling herself up by her bootstraps, literally and figuratively, she sets out to follow another dream of hers which is to own a farm. She envisions her farm to be just like the Fisher Price one she had as a child but reality just keeps bursting her bubble.

First she gets to her farm — chicken farm she has decided — and it is beyond rundown. Actually rundown would be an improvement. But pretty soon her baby chicks, and a cache of dogs, arrive. Soon, Libby finds herself adapting well to her new farmer role. However, as luck would have it, she stumbles on the mysterious disappearance of a local teenager, that after two years is still no closer to being solved. This is just the kind of case that could help launch her career as a reporter for the local newspaper. Unfortunately, this may be a story that someone would just as soon stay untold.

While digging for answers, Libby finds herself in one mess after another but, not to worry, hunky rancher neighbor Luke is somehow always there to get her out of trouble. But that in itself is trouble for Libby who is not looking for any emotional or physical entanglements, even though there’s no denying her attraction to Luke. And then there’s the journalist side of her that is getting disturbing vibes from his attentiveness. As time goes on the cast of suspects seems to grow and the most likely of them are locals who seem eager to befriend Libby. The line between friend and suspect is becoming fuzzy as her life and peace is threatened. It’s rapidly becoming a race between good and evil. And as her relationship with Luke grows into something resembling love, Libby is faced with a real possibility that Luke might hold the key to the teenagers disappearance. Once again she is faced with a question of trust. Surely Luke can pass the test...or can he?

Never judge a book by its cover especially holds true for COWBOY TROUBLE. Just when you think this is going to be another girl meets rancher story, Kennedy throws a wrench in the mix and not just one — a whole toolbox of them. This book definitely had me questioning my sleuthing skills by the end, so sure that I knew exactly who the culprit was. Kennedy had me believing that there wasn’t a good guy in the bunch. Enjoy.


When her boyfriend and boss run off together, Libby Brown packs up and moves from Atlanta to Lackaduck, Wyoming. Ever since she was a little girl she has dreamed of owning her own chicken farm. There is a lot she doesn’t know about her new endeavor, lucky for her Luke Rawlins, the handsome cowboy next door, is willing to help. Using her crime reporting skills Libby will be working for the local newspaper. She learns about a missing young woman who may be a runaway or a murder victim and starts asking questions someone doesn’t want answered. Her top suspects are a cook, a vet and a crazy taxidermist. Luke appears to want to help but maybe he just wants to distract her from getting to the truth.

This was an amusing cowboy contemporary romance with a nice hint of mystery. I appreciate my cowboy romances chock full of rural charm and this one definitely was. All of the characters were well developed and so appealingly realistic. Libby is so bold and I couldn’t help but admire her courageousness, not everyone has what it takes to pack up, move cross country alone and start such a daunting undertaking. I liked the fact that she was also so very vulnerable when it came to her feelings for Luke and how afraid she was to risk her heart again after losing a friend a lover and a pet. I love that Luke lives with his parents, he is such a tenderhearted man. He occasionally looks weak, not a typical alpha male but that only made him more endearing to me. He’s not the perfect man but he is perfect for Libby. This couple’s chemistry is very appealing. I found the silly little doggies adorable and I’m a huge sucker for baby chicks. The mystery was a little too predictable but as this is classified as a contemporary I looked on it as an added bonus. I look forward to reading more from this author.



Review:

"Cowboy Trouble" is the debut novel for Joanne Kennedy and I am sure there will be many more to come!

This contemporary romance with a twist of suspense held my attention from the first page to the last. I love the idea of the city girl meeting the country boy, but refusing to believe that ’more’ can become of their friendship. Libby finds an unsolved crime to fill her time as the new journalist in the small town, but she soon realizes maybe things are better off left alone. This is where the story really starts to take off as the author builds on the ’mystic’ of all those small town secrets that try and stay hidden.

The chemistry between Libby and Luke sizzles even when we laugh at the jokes/secrets they keep from one another. One of them being Libby trying to make Luke believe she has a ’ferocious’ dog, when it’s really a small, harmless dog. The mystery of Luke’s parents and friendship with Mike slowly unfolds as the killer gets more brazen in trying to hide the truth of what happened to the missing girl.

Cowboy Trouble will bring smiles, laughs and mystery as you read through the book. So, put the chickens out, bring in the dogs and cuddle up to the fire and enjoy a romantic and suspenseful story that will have you wanting to read the next Joanne Kennedy novel!!

Rating: 4 out of 5

I knew I was going to like this book when I read the first line: "A chicken will never break your heart."
heh
Having chickens I know this to be true.
I don’t, though, have a cowboy but that’s OK.
The story begins when Libby Brown, an investigative journalist for The Atlanta Journal Constitution, leaves all she knows and moves to a tiny town in Wyoming. She’s going to have a chicken farm and report for the local newspaper. There is not much going on around town but there is one big unsolved crime; The disappearance of Della McCarthy.

The first person she meets is her neighbor Luke Rawlins - a cowboy right down to his chaps.
Is he for real?
Abby then goes on to meet some of the other colorful residents of Lackaduck - including super handsome sheriff Cash McIntyre.

Abby’s full of big city energy and her training have her jumping right into the mystery of where is Della. Luke agrees to help her but things are not always what they seem to be.

The book was easy to read and full of true characters. There is romance, suspense, mystery and a wild chicken (?). Somewhat simplistic in the easy adjustment from city to country life but fiction is about dreaming and happy endings for the most part. I enjoyed reading the book and found mystery, curveballs and romance enough to keep me turning the pages.

“A chicken will never break your heart”…

With that simple motto firmly fixed in her mind, journalist Libby Brown leaves big city life and her two-timing boyfriend behind determined to become a “chicken rancher” in rural Wyoming. The trouble is, she doesn’t know a darn thing about chickens and soon comes to realize that transforming a ramshackle old farmstead into a modern chicken ranch is a lot of hard and sweaty work — especially with the added distraction of her sexy next neighbour, rancher Luke Rawlins.

Libby might be hell bent on keeping Luke at arm’s length, but his savvy, single minded and sexy new neighbour simply hasn’t had time to figure out that Luke is a hundred times more tenacious than she is. From the moment he’d met Libby he’d vowed to make her a permanent part of his life. Luke figures he has all the time in the world to convince her — until sheriff Cash McIntyre comes calling with the same romantic notions in mind. Now time is of the essence, especially once Libby begins digging into the whereabouts of a young woman whose mother is convinced she’s been murdered.

Everything about Kennedy’s charming debut novel hits the right marks from feisty and independent city slicker Libby and her “stealth” chickens (and various other “critters”) to cattle rancher Luke Rawlins and his resolute intentions to charm his new neighbour into becoming his wife. Toss in a murder mystery and you’ll be hooked, although identifying the bad guy who’s threatening Libby is easy to figure out. Cowboy Trouble is definitely a title you’ll want to add to your spring reading list.

Rating — 3 books

Category — contemporary romance

ISBN — 9781402236686


My thoughts: I enjoyed the chemistry between Luke and Libby - she being a newbie "rancher" and him being the handsome cowboy out to show her the ropes and keep her safe. In addition to raising chickens, Libby also joins the small staff at the local paper - Lackaduck Holler. She hears about an unsolved mystery - and jumps right in to try to solve it. The combination of mystery and romance was a hit with me and I look forward to seeing what else Joanne Kennedy brings us. This is her debut novel.

A really great read from a first time writer and I highly recommend reading!

I didn’t really like Libby because I thought she was giving mixed signals to the sheriff after telling him she wasn’t interested in dating at the moment and she decided to ignore the signals that he was interested in her and wouldn’t take NO for an answer. (ex: agreed to go with him to dinner to discuss the case and decided to wear a form fitting shirt and a short skirt and got into the same truck as him - no wonder he jumped her)

I also didn’t really like the sheriff because he was useless and didn’t really want to solve the crime. He also puts down people and says very bad things about them with no feelings! He wouldn’t take NO for an answer when Libby told him she wasn’t interested in dating and I think he thought he was Gods Gift to Women, LOL!

I liked Luke because he was caring and didn’t push Libby when he knew she wasn’t ready to get involved. He was there to help her with her dogs and puppies and whenever she needed someone. I did like the romance between him and Libby because it was sweet and romantic.

I also liked the supporting characters!

4/5