Evernight Publishing, $2.99, ISBN 978-0-3695-0467-8
Contemporary Romance, 2021
Sadly, Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy’s The Cowboy Gladiator is not some kind of time travel romance that sees a hot cowboy forced to don loincloth to fight in a gladiator ring. The comparison is explained in the first paragraph of the story.
Cowboys, especially the ones who rodeoed, were like gladiators, Asher decided after watching Russell Crowe’s movie too many times. They both competed where the odds for survival were poor and spectators watched with glee, some of them with a thirst for blood. The realization came to him during his long convalescence after a horse, aptly named Satan’s Get, injured him so much that he almost died.
Well, I suppose The Rodeo Gladiator may not have the same marketable ring, even if that would be a more accurate title.
Asher McCard—and that’s McCard with an “a” not an “o”, get that right folks—is recuperating after his brush with death, and he’s determined to get back into the ring ASAP. This is not what Charlotte Kelly wants to hear from her beloved, so she breaks off their engagement.
Her words hit home and hit hard. Asher missed her but he was a cowboy and cowboys don’t cry or whine over women.
I guess. He can always shag the cattle.
Now, I don’t think I’d be spoiling the story when I say this—but avert your eyes now if you didn’t want to see the ghastly details—but there is only one way this couple can have a happy ending, not counting one of them getting hit in the head so hard that they completely change their personalities as a result. That is, Asher quits the rodeo. There is a realism to this that I can appreciate. Of course, one can argue why Lottie would even want to marry someone she knows to risk his life each time he does the rodeo, but I guess maybe she doesn’t understand what the risk entails until she is confronted with Asher nearly getting killed in the ring.
My problem here is the execution of the story. I need these two to hash things out, maybe yell or cry a bit, so that I can see and empathize with their emotional ups and downs. It’s not easy for Lottie to make compromises in a situation such as this one, just as it can’t be easy for Asher to give up something that he has lived for all his life. I don’t necessarily agree with him or her, but I want to understand their situation, and to be with them as they come to an emotional happy ending.
Instead, all I get is a quick rush into a sex scene. Why are they having sex? Aren’t they supposed to be hashing things out? I am not that hard up that I need to read about Asher and Lottie going at it, oh please—I bought this thing for the romantic aspects of their story.
As a result, The Cowboy Gladiator ends up being a half-baked tale, one in which the sex scene ends up taking up precious space that could have gone to developing the emotional aspects of the relationship better. Asher and Lottie end up in a pretty accelerated happy ending after their happy shag, so this is one story that requires the reader to accept that sex can be so, so good that it is the cure for all emotional angst in a relationship. If that were to be the case, though, won’t this story then be better off being pure erotica? As it is, this one ends up being neither here nor there.
