Wild and Wrangled focuses on Camille (Cam) Ashwood, Riley’s mother and Gus Ryder’s co-parent. Cam plans on entering into a loveless marriage in order to financially secure her daughter’s future and to appease her meddling parents. However, her well-laid plans fall apart when the groom doesn’t show up to the wedding, leaving Cam (and Riley) with nowhere to live. With the help of the Ryder family, Cam is able to quickly find a place to stay, but it just so happens to be right beside Dusty Tucker, Cam’s first love who has recently returned to Meadowlark Wyoming to work at Rebel Blue Ranch after years of travel. Quickly realising that she can’t avoid Dusty in such a smalltown, Cam determines that they can be friends but the more time they spend together, the harder it is to ignore their re-emerging feelings for each other.
Wild and Wrangled is the fourth instalment of the Rebel Blue Ranch series; it can probably be read as a standalone, but I would recommend reading the series in order to avoid spoilers. Wild and Wrangled is an opposites attract, forced proximity, second chance romance set in a smalltown. It deals with themes and topics like found family, co-parenting, parent-child relationships, growing up, financial and job stability, self confidence, marriage, love and heartbreak, and parental expectations. The Rebel Blue Ranch series is perfect for fans of smalltown or cowboy romances like those by Elsie Silver, B.K. Borison, Sarah Adams, and Lauren Asher.
Firstly, I love the smalltown and close-knit Rebel Blue Ranch setting and really enjoyed getting to revisit it. Since Wild and Wrangled was the first book in the series that didn’t feature a Ryder sibling as a main character, I felt like it had a bit of a different vibe than the three previous books. That said, I appreciated that we still got to see lots of the meddling Ryder siblings and their significant others throughout Wild and Wrangled. I especially loved that we got to see lots of Cam and Gus’ spunky daughter Riley in this book, including some adorable moments involving embroidery floss friendship bracelets that are so heartwarming! Second chance romances typically aren’t my favourite, but I felt like it made sense for Cam and Dusty’s story. Sage included high school flashbacks interspersed throughout Cam and Dusty’s story; again, I’m usually not a big fan of flashbacks as they break up the action but, in this case, I think that it was done well. My favourite part of the flashbacks were the swoony handwritten notes that Dusty would pass Cam in class!
If you love smalltown second chance romances, then I highly recommend picking up a copy of Wild and Wrangled!
Wild and Wrangled is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of April 15th 2025.
Will you be picking up Wild and Wrangled? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
From the bestselling author of Done and Dusted and Swift and Saddled, the next book in the Rebel Blue Ranch series, a small-town romance in which past lovers get a second chance to rediscover what they lost
Camille Ashwood had always loved a plan. Her latest was her best yet. She was going to get married so she could secure her daughter’s future, get her overbearing parents off her back, and finally start building her own life in small-town Meadowlark, Wyoming. Easy, right?
But when her groom doesn’t show up to the wedding, Cam’s life is turned upside down—she doesn’t even have a place to live. That is until she finds out the house she’s loved since high school is available to rent. There’s only one problem: the neighbor.
Dusty Tucker has spent nearly all of his adult life running. Running from what, though? More like who: Cam Ashwood. But ever since he returned home last year, the girl who was his first, well, everything has become a woman seemingly determined to keep him at arm’s length. And he was okay with that—at least, that’s what he kept telling himself. She was getting married, after all. But now she’s single and living next door. Dusty wants to show her that they can be friends, and that he can stay put.
Despite her best attempts to stay far away from Dusty Tucker, Cam realizes that being close to him is like slipping into her favorite jeans. Easy. Comfortable. That is until past wounds start to open and feelings—both old and new—wreak havoc. Nearly ten years after they first met, Dusty and Cam begin to wonder if their first love can also be their last. And this time, will it be forever?
