All-American Cowboy: A Holiday, Texas Novel by Dylann Crush

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        Usually I leave romances for my mom to read first.  This time was different.  I didn’t have much to read, and I wanted to know about the pig.  Yes, there are pigs in this series.  It’s part of the reason I picked them up for my mom when I saw them at the library.  There are pigs and there is romance.  I was far more interested in the pigs, but the romance was good too.

         Charlie Walker has been running the Rambling Rose honky-tonk ever since it’s owner, Sully, died.  She would love for it to be her own, having worked there for eight years, but she promised Sully she would help keep it in his family, as it has been for well over a hundred years.  This promise is really the only thing, other than how she was brought up, that helps keep her civil when Sully’s grandson and heir comes to town.        

                Beckett Sullivan Holiday III (also known as Beck) has never met his grandfather.  He has never even been in contact with him.  His father, Holiday, had bad blood with Sully and the town of Holiday, Texas, and made sure his son stayed far away from all of it.  So, when Beck has to leave his corporate, New York City life for the small Texas town, he feels as though he has entered another world.  Charlie certainly lets him know he has when she helps him pull his rental vehicle out of a ditch.  She tells him his office mentality and way of dress is not going to work in Holiday.

                Beck takes Charlie’s advice and gets some new clothes.  While it is an effort, the clothes do not automatically make Beck fit in.  There are still so many things he doesn’t understand about the town and how the Rambling Rose is run.  Beck thinks he can come in, make changes (for a future sale of the property and business), and be done.  He doesn’t understand the Rambling Rose and Holiday are places of tradition.  To alter that will not go over well.

                It takes Charlie leaving Beck to run the Rambling Rose on his own for him to learn his lesson.  The night ends up being a disaster.  After this he realizes it is better to follow Charlie’s lead first instead of taking everything on himself.

                As Charlie and Beck work together, they fall in love.  Their time together is limited, though, as Beck is due back in New York.  Wanting Charlie to see his world, he asks her to come visit him.  Hesitantly, Charlie does.  It’s there that she learns Beck has made a deal with his father to sign over the Rambling Rose, and that Holiday has no intention of keeping it in one piece.  Hearing this, Charlie flies back to Texas to unite with her family and friends in a fight to keep the Rambling Rose standing.

                They can do this because technically Beck doesn’t own the honky-tonk.  At least not yet.  There is a stipulation in the will that says Beck must be part of the every-day running of the business and ride in the Founder’s Day parade before the ownership turns over to him.  If he doesn’t do these things, the property will go to a third party.  That third party is Charlie.

                This is how Charlie can come to own the Rambling Rose on her own.  The problem is, after Charlie leaves New York, Beck finds out Holiday will cause huge problems if that happens, forcing the Rambling Rose out of her hands.  Beck refuses to let Holiday get ahold of the honky-tonk and town he has come to love.  He has to get the Rambling Rose into his name before it’s too late.

                So, where does the pig come in?  For some reason it is tradition for the Rambling Rose to have a pig.  At the moment it is Baby Back, a pig who loves to escape.  In fact, it is Baby Back who helps Beck drive into the ditch.  She was running away from home when their paths crossed in the road.  It was definitely an interesting way for Beck to get introduced to Holiday.

                While there are definitely some eye-rolling moments with some of these characters, none of them are really bad, except for Holiday.  Even Dwight, who tried to make his relationship with Charlie out to be something far more than it was, wasn’t terrible.  In fact, I don’t think I felt like throwing this book once!  To me, that looks like a good sign for the rest of the books in this series to come.