Title:  The Christmas Tree Ranch
Series:
Author:  Lorane Kaye
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Published:  November 17, 2013
Publisher:
My Rating:  2 stars
Source:  Borrowed, Kindle Unlimited
Cover Description:

Corrine Thomas desperately needed to make a change in her life, not only for herself, but for her beautiful eleven year son as well. Life in San Francisco had just gotten too complicated! Working in the mortgage banking business gave her the break she was looking for by way of a small foreclosed ranch in North Idaho—and what a lovely name it had—The Christmas Tree Ranch!

Cleveland Mitchell had always watched over and protected his baby sister per his mother’s dying request. And even though Bonnie was all grown up and married, he still felt responsible for her and he would be damned if he was going to let some dame from California waltz in and steal his sister’s land right out from under her!

Sparks flew the moment Corrine and Cleveland met in more ways than one! For her, seeing that tall, handsome cowboy in her front yard stirred something deep inside—until he started accusing her of stealing this ranch! For him, the moment he lay eyes on her he knew she was trouble. But was it trouble for heart or was it because she was standing in front of him with an old broom aimed directly at his head!

Read on for my thoughts on The Christmas Tree Ranch.  No true spoilers, promise.

First of all is a lesson in not believing the cover art of a book – I should have known better, I know.  There is nothing remotely Christmas about this story aside from the fact that the heroine has bought a Christmas tree farm.  That is it, so if you’re looking for hot cocoa and tinsel not gonna find it here.

The idea of the story was intriguing enough for me to pick it up and do this review.  A woman and her young son purchase, through a foreclosure proceedings, a pine tree ranch or farm.. not even going to call it a Christmas tree farm anymore because that gives the wrong impression about this story.  The woman who had owned the farm previously has an overprotective brother who believes that the heroine stole the land out from under his sister and will do everything possible to make this woman’s life miserable until she leaves the area.  In a small town, with a close knit community all it takes is a few comments to delay phone service being hooked up, bad service at the local restaurants and attitude from the grocery store owners.  In other words, the guy’s a first class jerk.

I liked Corrine and her son, Darren.  She has had a difficult life and is setting out to make a new future for herself and her son.  Corrine has high hopes about this move and really this is it for her… the money is used up for this purchase so they simply have to make this farm work for them.  I even liked Bonnie, the woman who had owned the property previously.  She had made some bad decisions and was doing everything in her power to counter the actions of her brother, the jerk.

I loathed Cleveland our hero.  There is no way in hell that I would have forgiven and forgotten, let alone fall in love with a man who would do the things that Cleve had done to Corrine.  No freakin’ way.  Even when he discovers his mistakes and errors in judgement, the redeeming part for our hero… I was so done with this man.  There was no going back for me.

This was one of those times that I was grateful for Kindle Unlimited since I didn’t actually spend any money on this book, I borrowed it.  You might be able to look past Cleve’s actions and see a different man than I did.  And you might enjoy this story far more than I did.  But there were just too many things totally wrong for me that I can only say that this book is an okay read, and leave it at that.