Welcome to Four Corners Ranch, where the West is still wild…and when a cowboy needs a wife, he decides to find her the old-fashioned way. 

Cowboy Sawyer Garrett has no intention of settling down. But when he becomes a single dad to tiny baby June, stepping up to the responsibility is non-negotiable. And so is finding a woman to be a mother to his infant daughter. So he decides to do it the way the pioneers did: by putting out an ad for a mail-order bride. 

Evelyn Moore can’t believe she’s agreed to uproot her city life to marry a stranger in Oregon. But having escaped one near-disastrous marriage, she’s desperate for change. Her love for baby June is instant. Her feelings for Sawyer are…more complicated. Her gruff cowboy husband ignites a thrilling desire in her, but Sawyer is determined to keep their marriage all about the baby. But what happens if Evelyn wants it all? 

In bonus novella Once Upon a Cowboy, can single dad Adam give Belle the fairy tale she’s always dreamed of?

Titles in the Four Corners Ranch series include — Unbridled Cowboy —♥— Merry Christmas Cowboy —♥— Cowboy Wild —♥— The Rough Rider —♥— The Holiday Heartbreaker —♥— The Troublemaker —♥—

This is an adult 18+ story that may contain language, possible violence, and/or sexual situations geared to an adult audience.

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Title:  Unbridled Cowboy
Series:  Four Corners Ranch #1
Author:  Maisey Yates
Genre:  Modern Western Romance
Published:  May 24, 2022
Publisher:  Harlequin (HQN)
My Rating:  4.5

Unbridled Cowboy begins the Four Corners Ranch series with a step-back-in-time solution for two people who don’t want the emotional entanglements of love and marriage… but the marriage part is definitely desired.  Let’s call it a modern-day mail-order bride situation.  Sawyer and Evelyn will come together to make a good life for baby June, but neither ever expected love for the other to catch them unaware.  Loving baby June, that’s a given; loving each other?  Completely unexpected… and complicated.

Sawyer had no intentions of ever settling down into the classic happy-ever-after relationship.  In fact, he didn’t do relationships… but he did do friends with benefits.  When those “benefits” produced a sweet innocent baby that his partner did not intend to raise, well, Sawyer stepped up and took responsibility.  He’ll soon learn that single fatherhood is rougher than his day job on the ranch and will seek an old-fashioned solution.  Never expecting how his world was about to change when the right woman stepped into it.

On the outside, Evelyn appeared to have it all; a great job, a loving man, and a marriage on the horizon.  Ironic how things aren’t always as they seem when Evelyn discovers the man she’d planned to spend her life with is nothing more than a cheating jerk.  Time for a reset… and what better way than answering an ad for a mail-order bride.  Who still enters into a marriage of convenience these days?  Well, when your dreams go up in smoke – a modern-day woman can learn a few things from the past.  She expected to fall in love with an innocent baby, but the man surprised her in the most unusual ways.

Both Sawyer and Evelyn have some major issues from their childhoods that affect the people they’ve grown up to be.  In fairness, I’m not going to go into details about their traumatic pasts because that’s something each reader should encounter for the first time themselves.  But my heart broke for both of these proud people in different ways.  We never know what is going on in someone’s life… and that was especially true for this couple.  Watching them love and care for baby June, and begin to face and deal with the past to the point of being able to see a real marriage type of future for themselves was an emotional journey.

Mixed in with some steamy moments, laughter mingled with tears, and secondary characters who brought this world to life (and I want to know more about) as I was easily swept into Evelyn, June, and Sawyer’s lives.  At times this isn’t an easy read, but it is one that touches on real issues for so many.  Their past was not overwhelmingly in the way of their story, yet it did play a major part in letting go of the past in order to create a future filled with love that has a very good chance of lasting a lifetime.  I loved Unbridled Cowboy and look forward to continuing the series.

I own a Kindle edition of this title.

This series is one that I’ve wanted to get caught up on so it seemed a perfect fit for the “Can You Read A Series In A Month” competition.  I’m going for bragging rights because my TBR is so overpowering. 🙂

Available in print, audio, or for your favorite e-reader