Narrated by Tatiana Sokolov
The Cowgirl’s Forever Love is the first in the spin-off series The Colemans of Heart Falls, which brings the rest of the Whiskey Creek Coleman girls to Heart Falls to find love. (The first Whiskey Creek Coleman, Tamara, got her HEA with Caleb Stone in A Rancher’s Heart.) Lisa Coleman, her youngest sister, comes to stay during Tamara’s difficult pregnancy. Poor Tamara is nauseous and unwell the whole pregnancy (I can relate, Tamara!) Lisa plans to stay for six months only and then do “the next thing”. She’s not sure exactly what that is, but expects it to involve travel of some sort and knows now that she will not return to Alberta and the family ranch at Whiskey Creek.
Josiah Ryder is Caleb’s best friend and the local veterinarian. He’s had a crush on Lisa ever since she arrived but had been reluctant to start anything because she was destined to leave. Now that she has decided not to return to Whiskey Creek however, he sees there might be a possibility of convincing her to stay in Heart Falls. He makes no secret of his hopes and isn’t at all underhanded in his desires. Lisa, for her part, is equally attracted to Josiah and is willing to see where things go, as long as Josiah realises that she might not stay.
The romance between them is fairly gentle (not without heat – there is plenty of that; just without any big angst) and they slowly explore their attraction and connection and of course, realise they belong together. There is a little bit of a question about the how of their HEA given Lisa’s desire to travel but I wasn’t surprised by the solution they reached – it fit the story and the characters.
While the story is low conflict, there are some potentially distressing things in the book, namely animal abuse. It’s not graphic but it might be upsetting to some listeners.
Apart from Josiah and Lisa finally giving into their attraction and letting themselves explore a relationship, there is also the long-awaited arrival of the newest Coleman-Stone and (dun dun dun!) a new and surprising development which has a big impact on the Coleman sisters. (My lips are sealed.) For bonus points, George Coleman becomes less crotchety.
I enjoyed Olly, the matchmaking rescue dog, who wasn’t happy unless Josiah and Lisa were together.
I did wonder what Lisa was going to do for work by the end of the story – that much wasn’t clear to me, but I expect it will be mentioned over the course of the series (I haven’t read book two, The Cowgirl’s Secret Love yet. It’s coming on audio fairly soon [July 1]). Because I’m contrary, I did like that the story told wasn’t really about Lisa’s career goals or ambition but was more generally about what would make her happy and content in her life; I gained the impression that Lisa was far more focused on those things and her eventual employment would be a reflection of that. Still, I was curious about what she was going to do for cash.
The narration was to the usual high standard, with excellent differentiation between particularly the female cast and also between the male and female characters. Ms. Sokolov also delivers on the emotion and tone in the story and brings the sexy for the more intimate scenes without overplaying it. Most of the hero-types in the story sounded very much the same to my ear but dialogue tags helped me out, so I didn’t struggle to identify who was talking.
It was fortunate I listened to the book via the Audible app because I found the download too fast for my liking. I slowed it down to 0.8x and the book sounded much more like I had been expecting. I’m not sure if there was an error in the upload or if something else was going on. I didn’t need to slow things down very much; it wasn’t a case of being read to by a chipmunk, but up until then (fortunately early on in the listen) everything felt just a little rushed. Slowing the speed put me at the pace I usually expect from Ms. Sokolov. It may have been a deliberate choice for all I know – while it’s rare for me, lots of people listen to audiobooks sped up a little. My iPod doesn’t offer the multitude of speed options that the Audible app does – as it turned out 0.8x for this book was the Goldilocks zone for me. Other than that, I enjoyed the narration very much. I am always guaranteed a pleasant listening experience with this narrator; it’s one thing that draws me to the audio versions of Vivian Arend’s books (which are autobuys for me).
Kaetrin
Buy The Cowgirl's Forever Love by Vivian Arend on Amazon
