Cowboy, It’s Cold Outside was a fun holiday read – the perfect escape from when all the holiday activities and shopping started to overwhelm me.

When country music star Cash Colton first meets shy Paige MacGregor, sparks fly. It’s palpable, and Lori Wilde makes it happen on the page with words poetic and perhaps a bit unexpected in the same chapter where there’s also observations of faded Levi’s on a cowboy’s butt:

“His dusky eyes held the promise of landscapes she yearned for – windswept moors and craggy mountains, foamy ocean waves and rocky deserts, stony castles and petal-strewn gardens.”

I love it.

There is definitely a play of contrasts here. Clay comes off as cocky and confident, but is coming off a rough relationship, struggling to find his songwriting mojo and, boy, does he have problems left and right with that. Paige is sweet and perky, awkward and beautiful – and utterly lacking in self-confidence, to the point where at times I put down the book in frustration because I couldn’t knock some sense into her.

They’ve both had their share of troubles with past romantic interests, but it’s Paige who is all but burying her head in the sand and she plugs along, rebuffing him at every turn for self-preservation. (I’ll give her this – she’s still trying to recover from her last disastrous relationship, and that one would probably have me running from anything male for a good long time, too.)

Cash initially chases her because he’s starting to hear the music flow again, and she could be his new muse. While he starts off thinking he’s only looking to be Mr. Right Now to Paige…well, maybe he surprises himself.

Both characters were interesting but it was Cash who fascinated me. His character really seems to grow and develop in this book, and I love how music wove through his thoughts and interactions.

“In her body he supped the history of song. The Celtic footprints of reels and ballads. The drunken beat of tribal drums. The mournful sigh of bagpipes, and the hopeful wheeze of polka accordions. The haunting wistfulness of a forest dulcimer. The sweet, easygoing autoharp.”

When an author can weave a mention of bagpipes and polka accordions into a sex scene – and it works – that’s something. Wilde also does a great job at building tension – the first lovemaking scene is well over halfway into the book. It’s not thrown in the story gratuitously and each scene offers more insight into the characters.
Cowboy, It’s Cold Outside was a fun read because there is clever and entertaining dialogue, which I love in a romance novel. Author Wilde uses musical terms in the introduction of each chapter (in lieu of chapter titles) that serves well to hint at what’s coming next in the story.

I was surprised to realize this was part of a series (despite the “A Twilight, Texas Novel” on the front cover – so I can safely add that it works well as a stand-alone. There IS a bevy of interesting and entertaining side characters so I’ll definitely be going back to read more in this series. (AND – if you enter the giveaway below, you can win another of Lori Wilde’s novels in the series!)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Many thanks to Lone Star Book Blog Tours and the author Lori Wilde, who provided a copy of the novel in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
( )

This is the 2017 addition to Lori Wilde's romance series set in Twilight, Texas (aka Granbury, my current home town), at Christmastime once again.

Romance tropes in the story are italicized: billionaire playboy cowboy performer [country musician] Cash Colton, jilted nearly a year ago and losing his inspiration, comes to Twilight to perform in a benefit for longtime friend Emma (subject of an earlier novel), who runs the local playhouse where ugly duckling tortured heroine Paige MacGregor deals with her psychological scars and works as an usher, one of the three jobs she holds down to make ends meet after her previous boyfriend stole her identity and spent all her savings. There's immediate sparks and they decide to have a fling. But of course there's more than that.

Musical terms and their definitions begin each chapter, and provide a clue as to what will happen next. However, musical similes and metaphors describe the sex, and get to be a little over the top. I do like the cover of this book, though. Snowy Christmas scenes aren't realistic for this part of Texas, but I've seen a lot of wreaths in this area similar to the one pictured. ( )