The Cowboys of Stone Ridge, Book 1
From the author:
In a small Texas town where cowboys outnumber women, one rule keeps the peace: Don’t fall for your best friend’s sister.
He’s the grumpy one—the steady, hard-working cowboy who keeps his head down and his feelings locked tight. She’s the one woman he’s never been allowed to want. Off-limits. Untouchable. Completely wrong.
In a town where everyone knows everyone’s business, temptation is everywhere—and so are the consequences.
Breaking the rule could cost him his best friend.
Following his heart could cost him everything else.
Because in a place this small, secrets don’t stay hidden…and love has a way of rewriting every rule.
A slow-burn, small-town cowboy romance featuring a grumpy hero, forbidden feelings, forced proximity, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
This is a self-published ebook I got through BookBub. I don’t review many self-published books, but they are a huge part of the book market now, and the numbers keep growing. There are a few self-published authors I review regularly (Piper Rayne and Amy Dawes spring to mind), and many of them are being picked up by mainstream publishers as well, with the authors often keeping the digital rights and selling print rights, like Lucy Score. It’s all changing rapidly, not to mention the influx of AI into the publishing realm, especially in romance. But I’ll leave those thoughts for another day.
Stone Ridge, Texas—still clinging to its Old West roots—has one big problem: men outnumber women five to one. It’s a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone’s business and has an opinion about it.
Sadie Stephens, the town’s new schoolteacher, has loved her older brother’s best friend, Lincoln Carver, since she was sixteen, but to him she was always just her brother Beau’s little sister. Back then, he barely noticed her. Lincoln grew up fast after his mother walked out on the family, leaving him to raise his younger siblings and teaching him not to trust love or permanence. Sadie, meanwhile, left Stone Ridge for college, only to have her confidence shattered by a cheating boyfriend. Now she’s back home, wary of men and trying to rebuild her life.
Her best friend, Eve, once engaged to Lincoln’s younger brother Jackson, fled on their wedding day. The Carver family blamed Sadie for not talking Eve out of it, and the fallout cracked something between the two families that never fully healed. Eve has since become a veterinarian and carries her own scars, including partial hearing loss and unresolved feelings for Jackson. But that’s a story for another book.
Sadie’s return to Stone Ridge isn’t smooth. She’s back, teaching at a start-up school for the town’s youngest children, so they won’t have to ride a bus halfway across the county. On her first day, a student pushes her to the brink of exasperation, and her frustrated stomp sends her foot straight through the rotting floorboards. Repairs are needed immediately, and in a town full of men eager to help, Lincoln is one of the first to step up. A rancher and former rodeo star, he’s respected, capable, and determined to keep his distance from anything resembling emotional entanglement—especially with Sadie.
But everything shifts when Sadie invites him to speak to her students about rodeo life. The kids convince him to demonstrate his lasso skills, and in the chaos, Sadie—true to her klutzy nature—trips, hits her head, and ends up with a concussion. Lincoln feels responsible and refuses to leave her alone when she declines a hospital visit. Dinner and a reluctant checkup follow, giving them their first real chance to see each other clearly.
Their chemistry is undeniable, but both carry deep‑rooted fears. Sadie doesn’t trust easily anymore. Lincoln doesn’t trust love at all. Her mother has opinions about cowboys and financial futures. The road to their happy ending takes more than a few wrong turns — but in a town like Stone Ridge, the community has a way of closing ranks around the people who need it most. Through missteps, misunderstandings, and a few emotional detours, Sadie and Lincoln slowly learn to let go of old wounds and take a chance on something real.
3/2026 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
LUCKY COWBOY by Heatherly Bell. Heatherly Bell Books. (April 6, 2021). ASIN: B08L1HMYM4. 318p.
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