The Rancher Meets His Match by Kate PearceMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Julia Garcia is a hot-shot San Francisco lawyer who has just been passed over for a promotion which has been given to an incompetent man, Blaine. Her father Juan has MS and has suddenly taken a turn for the worst so she has taken some annual leave to look after him, something Blaine bitterly resents.
Kaiden Miller was friends with Julia's older brother Miguel at school, he has stayed at home in Morgantown, working on his Dad's ranch and working as a carpenter helping to repurpose some of the historical buildings for housing. When Juan's doctor asks Kaiden to stop over to see what alterations Juan needs to make his home more wheelchair-friendly Kaiden is happy to help, that's what people do in small towns, he doesn't bank on meeting Julia Garcia fancy-schmancy, stick-up-her-butt, lawyer Julia who has always looked down on him. For her part Julia has never forgiven the class clown Kaiden for ridiculing her and bad-mouthing her behind her back at school.
Kaiden is the perpetual funny-man, the peacemaker, the one with the even temper who can coax his bad-tempered father out of a strop, but with Julia his equanimity deserts him and he takes delight in needling her.
This started promisingly but I felt the reasons for the enmity between Julia and Kaiden didn't really have much justification and there was a lot of unexplained backstory with Julia's brother Miguel which didn't go anywhere. Overall there wasn't enough tension between Julia and Kaiden which was compensated by lots of family angst and manufactured drama.
An easy read, with engaging characters but not enough character development for my taste.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.
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