Heartbreak at Roosevelt Ranch

Roosevelt Ranch #2

by Elise Faber

I had it all. Two beautiful children. A gainfully employed husband. A successful food blog.

The only thing missing from my life was . . . heat.

And I wanted to live. To live loudly and without fear.

I also wanted my husband to think I was as hot as I was when we were high school sweethearts. More, I wanted what my sister had: love, passion, and a husband whose love was infinite.

Because something was happening with Rob. Had he fallen out of love with me? Had he found someone else? Was I not—

Sigh.

Was I not enough?

Genres: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Marriage, Contemporary, Family Drama, Audiobook, Mystery

208 pages, ebook

First published June 3, 2018

About the author

USA Today bestselling author, Elise Faber, loves chocolate, Star Wars, and hockey (the order depending on the day and how well her team—the Sharks!—are playing). She and her husband also play as much hockey as they can squeeze into their schedules, so much so that their typical date night is spent on the ice. Elise changes her hair color more often than some people change their socks, loves sparkly things, and is the mom to two exuberant boys. She lives in Northern California. Connect with her in her Facebook group, the Fabinators or email her at elise@elisefaber.com.

Reviews

[Lu Bielefeld · Rating 2 out of 5]

Our heroine discovers a hidden phone that has calls and tests from another woman.
The hero is increasingly distant and working more and more. His attitude is very suspicious and he seems guilty.
He practically abandons his family and lust his co-worker. She is everything the wife is not. She's sexy and hot. He is always comparing the two and the wife loses.
The wife takes care of two children, the dog, the house, the extra curricular activities, is a driver and still takes care of the hero. She still has a cooking blog and is practically single mom.
The author could not convince me that he did not fuck the other woman. They were in too much lust for something more intimate not to have happened. He came home with marks on his neck and also lipstick marks on his shirt. And we still have several scenes of the two together and him with erection.
The two of them spent days in a hotel room together disguised as a couple.
And even the colleagues and people in town were noticing that they were having an affair.
All very shady and dirty.
She accepted everything very easily and had no grovel.
And the turn of the plot was very fucked up.
Very nonsense.
The result did not convince me.
-----------------------------

because there was a mark on his neck.
A suspicious bruise on the base of his throat—
Where someone might have kissed him.
And that someone had not been me.

------------------

Just after seven in the morning, the precinct was fairly quiet.
Which was just the way he liked it.
Fewer people, fewer distractions, a smaller risk of getting caught.

------------------

“Hey.”
The voice was soft, feminine, and sexy as hell.
Which meant he knew exactly who it was before he even glanced up from straightening the chair.
“Celeste,” he murmured.
A flash of white teeth framed in lush fire engine red. Curves for days encased in the department’s blues. Blond hair pulled into a perky ponytail.
Breasts. Ass. Hips. Waist.
This woman had it all.
She closed the door. “I need you.”
The chair slipped from his grip and bumped into his desk. The little frame standing next to his monitor rattled, fell forward.
His family’s smiling faces disappeared, but he barely noticed.
Celeste crossed around his desk, drew his hands to her waist, and kissed him.

------------------
===>While he is making out co-worker the wife is at home with two sick children:<==+

I’m dying,” I told Kelly into the phone.
“I’ll come over,” my sister said immediately. “Abby and I will distract the kids so you can get a break.”
“No,” I said. “We’re on quarantine. Stomach bug. I don’t want Abby to get sick.”
“Oh no!” Kel said. “The kids picked up something from school?”
“Yup,” I said. “And then me.”

-----------------------

“We were all sick.”
His dark brows pulled down. “You were? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I texted you three times.”
“You did? I didn’t get them.”

“Maybe don’t put your wife on Do Not Disturb?”
“Oh, I didn’t realize—”

----------------

Rob and I hadn’t had a date night since—
I couldn’t remember.

----------------------

“I need to tell you something. I have really awesome news—”
A voice intruded on their conversation. “Sorry. You’ll have to tell me later,” Rob said. “I need to go.”
“But—”
“I’m at work, Miss.”

--------------------------
===>He thinks of her as his girlfriend.<===

Rob hung up the phone and glanced over at Celeste as he slipped back into the car. “Good?” he asked.
She clucked her tongue. “Wife calling when you’re at work. So cliché.”
No, he thought. What was cliché was his wife calling when he was with his girlfriend.

----------------------------
==>He compares the two always and Celeste always wins.<===

She tapped a finger—complete with bright-red polish—to her lips. Melissa would never wear something so flashy. His wife wasn’t about upkeep. She liked things simple and underdone.
Skirts with flowers. Lacy shirts. Jeans and flats mixed with the occasional pair of sweats.
No heels. Nothing ostentatious.
Not like Celeste.
Even in the department-required button-down and slacks, she oozed sex.

------------------------

Celeste squealed then leaned up and smacked a kiss on his cheek. “You’re the best, Robbie!”

-----------------------------

He was more focused on the smear of red lipstick on his collar.

--------------------------

It was a local number, but one I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
I could barely hear anything—it was all static and wind and voices.
“Hello?” I said again.
“I can’t tell my wife . . .”
My heart twisted at the sound of Rob’s voice.
“I’ve got two kids. This is about them . . .”
Knees trembling, I leaned back against the counter when the call suddenly went crystal clear, wind and static gone. Rob’s voice came through with perfect clarity.
“No. She’s nothing.”

---------------------
==>He has the courage to blame her for the dog being injured, while he does not even show up at home to help care for his children or know what's going on.<===

“It’s not Tammy’s fault Rocco was injured.”
“Fine,” he snapped and thrust a hand through his hair. “It was your fault.”

------------------------

I heard Rob’s car start up.
And drive away.

--------------------------

“What’s between you and the girl on your phone?” I hissed and shoved at his chest, knocking him back a step. “What’s with you and the lipstick on your collar? What’s with you and not coming home last night?”
I yelled the last at the top of my lungs.

-----------------------
==>He admitted it!<===

Rob shook his head. “It’s not work.”
Those pretty little bubbles of positivity disintegrated. A giant boulder dropped straight onto my gut.
I was going to be sick.
“It’s not work?” I repeated dumbly.

-----------------------

“You’re good enough, Miss. Trust that.”
I paused, letting the words wash over me, holding them close.
“If that’s it, then I need to go.”
I pursed my lips together. Throwing me a tiny bone, then right back to normal.
At least I knew where I stood.
“Thanks for the pep talk. It was—” I shook my head. ”You did your duty. I won’t bug you again.”
“Melis—”
Pressing that red circle felt good.

-------------------------
==>He gets turned on and with dick hard by the other woman.<==

“Hey,” a feminine voice said two days later. The greeting was accompanied by red nails scratching lightly down his spine.
Rob shivered, slung an arm around Celeste’s waist to tug her tightly against him. She slid closer still, and plunked her ass into his lap. He shifted, adjusting those hourglass curves sideways over his legs.
“Is that a banana in your pocket . . .” she began, lips curved up and one perfectly shaped eyebrow raised.
“No,” he muttered, jutting his chin up and flicking his eyes over her shoulder when she glanced back at him.
Her bottom lip slipped out for a moment before she sighed and looked forward.

----------------

Maybe he’d been working too long of hours for too many years. Maybe he’d put other people before his family. Maybe he’d pushed everyone away.

----------------------

He used to think that ass was gorgeous, but now it just seemed like she was trying too hard.

---------------------

“Dad is never home,” Max grumbled.

------------------------

“Then I had to drop out of college to work and pay to put Rob through the academy.” My hands were fists, and I smacked one against my thigh. “I did it because I loved him, because I wanted the chance for him to do what he loved. So, after everything we’ve been through, how could he begrudge me that?”

-----------------------

Justin snagged Abby from Kel’s arms. “We’re here for you, Melissa. We’re family, and that means we have your back, Rob be damned.”

-----------------------

“Well, I don’t think patrolling involves calling my husband baby, do you?”
“No,” Kel said. “It doesn’t.”

-----------------

Rob stumbled into the chief’s office a little after midnight, bleary-eyed and unshaven. It had been five days since he’d been home.

---------------------
==>WTF! Does it mean he does not care if it was the wife who was hurt?<==

Thank God it wasn’t the kids, but Melissa.

------------------------

He cleared his throat, eyes drifting down my body in a way that I might have thought was desire, if he wasn’t seemingly interested in a woman like Celeste. A woman who was supposedly all curves and sex appeal and red lipstick and—

-------------------
==>He got emotionally involved with the other woman!<===

“Celeste.” Rob’s pleading voice raised enough for me to hear it clearly. “Please don’t do this.”
Pain knifed through me.
And dammit I was tired of this man hurting me. I was on a perpetual merry-go-round of pain and really freaking sick of it.
“Celeste— Stop. Listen. You mean too much to me to—”
Fuck. This. Shit.
I threw the covers back and stood.

-------------------

“No. A really shitty thing to do was to fuck your coworker and then disappear from our lives. To throw me and our kids away like we didn’t fucking matter. That was the shitty thing to do.”

-------------------
===> WARNING! PLOT TWIST... UNBELIEVABLE! I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THIS SHIT!<===

“Celeste fucked with my phone,” Rob growled. “She put you on the blocked caller’s list and then changed your contact information. Look.”

--------------------

“Only that it’s obvious to everyone in this town that you’ve mixed duty with a slice of on-the-job-pleasure and that Celeste was your favorite version of it.”
“That’s bullshit.”
I stopped and glared at him. “Oh, so you haven’t kissed her? Had your hands on her and her hands on you? You haven’t touched or fantasized or fucked her?”

-----------------------
==>AND THE INITIAL SCENE WITH THE TWO KISSING AND MAKING OUT IN THE OFFICE? WITH NO ONE TO OBSERVE! THIS WAS NOTHING WITH THE CASE THAT THEY WERE WORKING.<==

“I haven’t slept with her,” he muttered. “And any touching or kissing was strictly for the case.”
“That according to you? How does she feel about it?” He froze and so did my heart. “Yeah,” I murmured. “That’s what I thought.”
“Celeste can be a little persistent, but she knew I was married.
That everything had to be on the level. We only pretended to be a couple when it was necessary to further the case.”

------------------

“I don’t understand why you’re still here.” I spread my legs and pointed between them. “Are you that desperate for another lay? Have another itch for me to scratch since Celeste isn’t here?”
“Miss. I haven’t—”
“Fuck off, Rob. Just fuck the hell off.”

------------

Except . . . when was the last time that he’d just thought of her as the woman he loved?
Years.

--------------

This was Rob. This was me. This was us.

--------------
==>Where's the grovel? Is that all? It's too little!<===

“Miss, I’m sorry.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry too.”

---------------
==>He rushed to assist Celeste when she called him. He cares about her.<==

But . . . Celeste was still in.
And she’d just texted begging for his help.
“Rob,” Miss said, and he turned back to his wife. The beautiful woman he’d just finally started rebuilding bridges with, their peace tenuous at best.
“You have to go,” she said.
His knees wobbled. Actually felt like Jell-O until he got his shit together and manned up.
“Miss, it’s not—”

-----------------

[reeder (reviews) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would have given this 2 stars for the deeply flawed cheating husband plot, because the author only needed to follow one rule to get that back on track, but then it turns out the husband is just plain stupid. You can fix a badly handled cheating plot; you can't fix stupid.

the cheating
The husband claims he didn't cheat and that all the evidence to the contrary -- his "cheater" phone, the lipstick on his collar, the gossip around town, the unexplained nights away -- was necessary for an undercover police operation he was conducting with his beautiful coworker.

The problem with this explanation is that the author chooses to ramp up the reader's doubt by including intimate scenes with the coworker and internal monologues about her that occurred outside the scope of the investigation and were never explained. The husband even prefaces his eventual explanation to his wife with an internal monologue that makes it clear he understand this principle:

He needed to come clean. About everything. If Rob wanted to keep his wife, he needed to tell her everything.

The investigation, the drugs, the kisses, and touches. He had to lay it all on the table and not leave out a single detail.

Because if she found out later that he'd glossed something over, any trust he'd earned back would be gone.

...but he DOESN'T explain the kisses and the touches at all. Doesn't mention them. It's failure on a meta level.

At an earlier point the wife is practically begging him to admit that the evidence of infidelity she sees is related to his job, and he flatly denies it: "It's not work." I have no problem believing he was lying to her in that moment, but the book needs to explain why he thought a lie was necessary when it was clear his wife was in agony thinking he was cheating on her.

That's part of the ritual shakeout of the cheater-wasn't-cheating trope: you need to explain away the appearance of cheating -- ALL OF IT -- to the reader's satisfaction. Instead, this book first ducks behind the supposed explanation for his behavior (he's on an undercover operation) and then attempts to distract us with the twist (the OW coworker is actually one of the criminals! And she's also the heroine's half-sister! And we get to fill in the blanks as to why she hates the heroine enough to try to destroy her marriage and frame her husband and ultimately attempt to kill her! Whee!).

but in the end, he's just too stupid for me to care
1. He's too stupid to hide his cheater phone somewhere the wife won't find it.
2. He's too stupid to realize the beautiful coworker -- whom he recognizes as being aggressively into him -- has blocked his wife's incoming texts on his own phone and set up a dummy account he's been texting with the messages he intended for his wife. (What was the OW doing with his phone to begin with? Does he have no security on it? HOW STUPID ARE YOU, STUPID HERO?)
3. Even after he discovers that the OW tampered with his phone and thereby damaged his relationship with his wife, he is still stupid enough to race out into the night when the OW contacts him for help when she is supposedly undercover. Because this is clearly a woman he should trust and care about?
4. He is too stupid to realize the doublecrossing OW had been setting him up to take the fall for the whole drug operation they were investigating.
5. But wait! (you say) He was smart enough to call in the FBI...and the lead agent was the kingpin behind the drug operation. And he never guessed.

They need to remove this guy from the police force. He really should be investigating stolen pies and truancy issues.

I am so grateful my library came through with this book and I didn't have to spend my own money on it.

[Tianna✸loves books✸ · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was so frustrating.
Wife finds a hidden phone under her husbands side of bed. He has messages from his lover (or not). Later it turns out that he was doing some undercover work with that woman, who is a bitch of course. And he had to pretend to be a couple. And he didn't think it was important to tell this to his wife.
Undercover or not, I don't give a damn. He has fucking guts to says that any touching or kissing he did with the bitch was strictly professional. Yeh...fuck you asshole.

Hate such disgusting plots in the book.

[Nikki ღ Navareus · Rating 3 out of 5]

***THREE STARS***
I enjoyed this story and it kept me glued from page one. I adore cheating stories, so I was super excited to read this one from the blurb. Even though I could see the big reveal about what Rob was really doing coming from a mile away, I still enjoyed the smidgen of angst brought up through the story from Melissa discovering that her husband might be cheating on her. Rob cam off as a gigantic asshole in this story, and since I love asshole heroes, I thrived on that aspect of the story. Melissa came off as a bit of a doormat though, passively putting up with Rob's shitty behavior. That being said, this would have been a solid 4 stars for me, if the ending hadn't gotten so OTT ridiculous with drama. Still a decent enough of a story. Now I need to go back and read Disaster at Roosevelt Ranch.

[Raj · Rating 2 out of 5]

The strange makeup of the hero Rob who is an undercover detective became too much of a itch that eventually became one itch too much to scratch.The images that flooded his mind of his wife Melissa vs his undercover girlfriend Celeste at various instances as the story went just became too jarring to fully immerse oneself in the book.

The family man,the undercover police woman and the wife:
The voice was soft, feminine, and sexy as hell.
Which meant he knew exactly who it was before he even glanced up from straightening the chair.
“Celeste,” he murmured.
A flash of white teeth framed in lush fire engine red. Curves for days encased in the department’s blues. Blond hair pulled into a perky ponytail.
Breasts. Ass. Hips. Waist.

This woman had it all.
SHE CLOSED THE DOOR. “I need you.”
The chair slipped from his grip and bumped into his desk. The little frame standing next to his monitor rattled, fell forward.
His family’s smiling faces disappeared, but he barely noticed.
Celeste crossed around his desk, drew his hands to her waist, and kissed him.

She tapped a finger—complete with bright-red polish—to her lips. Melissa would never wear something so flashy. His wife wasn’t about upkeep. She liked things simple and underdone.
Skirts with flowers. Lacy shirts. Jeans and flats mixed with the occasional pair of sweats.

No heels. Nothing ostentatious.
Not like Celeste.
Even in the department-required button-down and slacks, she oozed sex.

“Hey,” a feminine voice said two days later. The greeting was accompanied by red nails scratching lightly down his spine.
Rob shivered, slung an arm around Celeste’s waist to tug her tightly against him. She slid closer still, and plunked her ass into his lap. He shifted, adjusting those hourglass curves sideways over his legs.
“Is that a banana in your pocket . . .” she began, lips curved up and one perfectly shaped eyebrow raised.
“No,” he muttered, jutting his chin up and flicking his eyes over her shoulder when she glanced back at him.

Celeste laughed—a shrill, annoying sound that grated on his nerves. But the man sitting across from them seemed to like it. He crooked finger at her, and Celeste clambered out of his lap, flashing him her red lace thong in the process.He used to think that ass was gorgeous, but now it just seemed like she was trying too hard.

And we were right back to reality.
“Celeste.” Rob’s pleading voice raised enough for me to hear it clearly. “Please don’t do this.”
Pain knifed through me.
And dammit I was tired of this man hurting me. I was on a perpetual merry-go-round of pain and really freaking sick of it.
“Celeste— Stop. Listen. You mean too much to me to—”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only that it’s obvious to everyone in this town that you’ve mixed duty with a slice of on-the-job-pleasure and that Celeste was your favorite version of it.”
“That’s bullshit.”

I stopped and glared at him. “Oh, so you haven’t kissed her? Had your hands on her and her hands on you? You haven’t touched or fantasized or fucked her?”
“What?” Rob jumped to his feet. “Of course I haven’t.”

“I haven’t slept with her,” he muttered. “And any touching or kissing was strictly for the case.”

in the end the husband just had his finger in one pie too many to be totally believable as an absolutely faithful man.

[Raffaella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just too messy for my taste.
- there’s a hypothetical cheating here. The heroine finds some very confusing messages on hero’s phone from a woman.
At first she doesn’t ask any explanation because she’s afraid he’s cheating. So she prefers not to know. Lately they haven’t been so close as in the past, because they have two children who keep them very busy and the hero has just become a detective. He’s very distant and worried and doesn’t talk to her as in the past.
Actually he’s nasty and unpleasant and when she asks him something he doesn’t explain. He only tells her he’s very busy on a case.
I must admit I read many reviews where readers thinks he cheated or at least he was very attracted by this ow, but IMO he wasn’t.
The woman is a colleague and they are working together. The genius in charge of their department decided that they have to pretend to be a couple of junkies to stop some drug smugglers that turned their small town into a mob movie.
Really???
So he had to pretend to be this woman’s lover in front of everyone.
Ok, I’m not a cop but this seems an old movie.
Ok let’s say that’s he’s undercover with this woman. The woman is also a sex bomb and trying very hard to do not only her job but the hero too.
He’s not attracted to her.
All his thoughts about her are not of a man attracted by a woman but one who has to endure her attentions.
He never encourages her and actually he rejects her when she’s around.
Yes he acknowledges she’s a very attractive woman, and it would be very weird if he didn’t but he thinks she’s not his type, his wife being his type, so no, he was never attracted to her.
And if he kissed her it was no more than a stage kiss, like actors in a movie.
So no, he didn’t cheat physically or emotionally.
And in fact he was looking forward to being at home with his wife and was missing her very much. The drug dealers thing worried him beyond measure.
Ow was a slut. She blocked the heroine’s number of the hero’s phone so they could not communicate. But I wonder how she had access to his private phone.
Ow was really evil and she was basically one of the drug dealer herself. She hurts the heroine and kidnaps her and would have murdered her. There’s also some strange revelation in the end of the book that was unsettling and not really necessary. Like too much ingredients all mixed up together.
The hero and the heroine had some issue but cheating and lack of physical attraction wasn’t one of those.
What I liked.
- the heroine is a food blogger and she succeeds in having a tv show all for herself. She’s successful and smart.
- there’s a man who’s very interesting and is the vet. He likes the heroine and hubby dear is very aware of that.
What I didn’t like
- the husband is unpleasant. He’s nasty and hurtful with the heroine even if he doesn’t cheat. He’s also a very bad cop since he’s not able to understand that evil ow is evil and she’s also trying to damage his marriage. And this man is a detective?? Did he win the job at the lottery?
- too messy in the end with evil ow, evil mother of the heroine, kidnapping and other things.
- miscommunication. He doesn’t explain his behavior to the heroine because he wants to protect her and he lets her think he has an affair with another woman. I’m not a detective but I don’t know if he has to lie to his wife in order to protect his case. Meh. And the heroine should have talked about her doubts instead of asking for divorce without and explanation. Those two have issues.

[Ana Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not even going to repeat here the quotes that my colleagues have already posted in their reviews and that "prove" in many ways that relationship between the "H" and his "co-worker" went far beyond the professional. And by itself, it pissed me off a lot. But what made me even more upset was the author's neglect to explain to the reader what really happened.😤 It was as if she couldn't decide whether or not a cheat or how far that relationship went. Each time a scene was directed so that everything could be explained, the dialogue was diverted to superfluous things and this happened until the end.🤦‍♀️ We had no answer on the main question of the book. We never had the husband's point of view that FULLY explained what was happening, only fragments of situations that should serve to instill the reader's curiosity, but that in the end left only a bitter taste in my mouth. I couldn't understand the author's purpose with this story. Apparently there is none, because we did not see any character development, there was no legitimate resolution of the conflicts unless you are counting that after all they went trough the most that they could do for each other would be that she recognizes that she is tired and he is carrying her from side to side. Let's not forget the fact that after all the neglect of H with his relationship with his family, we still have the wife taking responsibility (as always)😒😒😒😒. The feeling I had is that the author started the story and just couldn't deal with what she proposed so I finished this book felting betrayed. I believe that if an author has no confidence in approaching a topic she should be aware of her limitations and consideration for the reader at least to find plausible answers before launching a publication. For me, she was just more of an author concerned with the quantity of books she writes than with the quality of them.

[Cheesecake · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK 3 stars because I did quite enjoy this mess of a book, but I don't think Rob groveled nearly enough for being such a patsy and making his family of lower importance to his job.

The book isn't sure what it wants to be.
Is is a thoughtful study of a married couple drifting apart (you know that 7 year itch thing?)
or... Is it an illogical harlequin with secret siblings and evil relatives?
or... Is it fluffy suspense?

Well actually it is all 3.
It starts out slower and more thoughtful and kinda depressing. In almost the first page, Melissa (Miss) finds a cell phone hidden under Rob's side of the bed that is full of text messages from someone named Celeste.
He has already not been much of a husband for months. Ever since he was promoted to detective.
But she has been patient. She has been a saint really.
There's actually a lot of depth to her character and I really liked learning about what makes her the person she is. She has dreams and it seems like Rob is trying to stifle them... well it seems like Rob is doing a lot of things he shouldn't be.

But he isn't.

At 40% we get Rob's POV and some answers. Some answers he should have given his wife!

I really enjoyed the middle of the book but it all became bizarre in the last 15%
Subtlety and character building was dropped in favour of crazy criminals etc.

By the end, I felt Rob does love her and he is a lousy cop.

Safety is actually good Rob is pretending to be married to his partner Celeste while they are undercover searching for a drug lord. Rob has appreciated the OWs' looks, comparing how different they are from his wife's. Contrary to what other reviewers say, he didn't have an erection with her. Celeste (his detective partner and the OW) makes a snide comment while they are undercover about a banana in his pocket. She was just being crass.
When he starts to realize what his secretiveness has done to his wife, the OW is gone from his mind. She now appears OTT and 'trying too hard'
Celeste kisses him and touches him when they are pretending. There is no mention at all about how he felt about it. What is mentioned is that she wanted more from him and he told her no.. repeatedly.
It also comes out later that Celeste had messed with his phone so that none of their (his and Miss') texts were reaching each other. And each assumed that the other was just ignoring their messages.
He feels bad about not telling Miss about the case as it all got out of hand and ended up being too dangerous. People in town started to him with Celeste and word gets back to Miss.
There is an OM sorta. He's an OM wannabe. Miss tells him there can be nothing. He's the H in the next book. But Rob gets mighty jealous. It was delicious!!!


For those that wonder about the OW and the nutty ending. Celeste turns out to be Miss's unknown half sister and working for the drug lord. The drug lord's main squeeze is Miss's estranged mother. Celeste is basically crazy and goes to jail at the end, never to be heard from again. Weird right!?

[Debbie DiFiore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to rate

Spoilers may be involved below

Okay this was a rough ride. I am not sure exactly why I want to give it four stars but I did. I changed it to two twice, changed it to three four times and just kept ending up at four stars. Cheating is a one star only in my world and what he did, in my opinion, was cheating. But there's the rub. It didn't feel like cheating in the end. One takeaway I realized after reading this book is that I never want to marry an undercover detective. Silly I know since I have been married forty years to a real estate broker and I will never get the chance but it still is a suck job. Not being able to tell the people you love what you are doing would be impossibly hard. I know there was horrible scenes in it, and I had read some terrible quotes in another review, but while I was reading them, knowing in hindsight what was happening, they didn't seem as terrible. Now I know that those of you who know me, know that cheating is my biggest pet peeve ever in romance and usually shelve them under DNR (do not read/do not rate/do not re-read/do not rant) and leave them the heck alone, but I was intrigued with the reviews and forced myself to read it. My favorite trope is marriage in peril but a) absolutely no cheating is allowed, b) the husband must grovel for years and c) absolutely no cheating allowed. I went back and re-read the chapters with the heroes point of view and they were off but now that I have finished the book it made more sense. But reading it was hard I just admit. And another thing is that I would not have acted like the heroine did! I would confront, castrate and then communicate my feelings to him while he lay bound and bleeding. She just acted like a martyr. and as I read the story, and heard about her Mother and childhood I understood it a little better. She did get stronger as the book evolved and I loved her interactions with Dr. Sam and the heroes jealousy. I want me a Dr. Sam for sure. He was awesome. I cannot wait for his book. In the end, a lot of pieces fell into place. Quite the ending there. Didn't see that coming and that was one of the reasons for the four stars. It was a great book in the end. My husband is still breathing and there are no holes in the drywall. That was a big bonus. I am glad I have it a chance. Would I recommend it or re-read it? Absolutely not! But it was very well written and I felt all the feels. And he did redeem himself in my opinion. And the heroine ended up being a real bad a$$. That was awesome.

[Jac K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is book two of the Roosevelt Ranch series. I didn’t read the first book, but this one follows the sister of the heroine I’m book 1. They are all standalone, but I can’t confirm if this couple (Rob and Missy) were introduced last book. I didn’t feel like I missed out on any of the story though.

Missy and Rob have been married for years; they have two kids. They were childhood sweethearts, but like many married couples.... they’ve lost that spark. Rob’s a cop, he’s recently been promoted to detective and since has seemed very withdrawn, and just not that into her.

This book hints of infidelity and is lumped in with the “marriage in trouble-hubs cheating trope list... but... The cheating is definitely a gray area... (I'll add deets later) not that I wouldn’t be pissed, but probably wouldn’t divorce my hubs over. First, in order for these books to work for me; I need dual POV and thankfully this book has it. So, at first I was gobbling this shit up getting ready to throat punch Rob ....but..... through his POV we know what the “cheating” situation is all about long before the heroine. So while she’s jumping to Z, we (the readers) know it’s not DEFCON 5, and are merely sitting mid alphabet. It gets a tad old because it takes almost 70% of the book for them to actual talk and figure out what the hell is going on, but we’ve known since chapter 4.
Now like I said, it may not be technically cheating in everyone’s book, but it was still really shitty, and after her being heartbroken for 3/4 of the book...she certainly moved on pretty damn quickly even encouraging Rob to go help Celeste the sneaky skank after she had meddled in their relationship.

So here’s the spoiler... Rob knows that Celeste has the hots for him. He acknowledges that she’s aggressive and grabby before they are put on their big case. They go undercover and are posing as a couple, completely off the books (eyeroll) only the chief knows, so even though they are pretending a few towns over....people are talking and Rob not wanting to put his family in danger (dbl eyeroll) doesn’t dispute the rumors or tell his wife what’s up. We only have a couple of Celeste encounters where she sits on his lap (teases him about being hard-which he isn’t) we get the most info during their argument when he says ...” I haven’t slept with her...and any touching or kissing was strictly for the case.”

There you have it; I sure as shit wouldn’t be happy. I wish they really would have duked it out and talked about the hurt his actions caused. At the very least some groveling, but the relationship stuff is just fixed poof...and then we’re off to the next thing.

Bottom Line- The actual on-page OW drama is quite small. There're only a couple scenes with them u/c. It's the assumptions/heartbreak on the h's side that takes up the page-time. IMO, the real letdowns of the book are that we the reader know what the deal is... killing angsty vibes. AND... the author skipped over the discussion parts where they needed to hash shit out... like actually what went down (kissing & touching) and why he acted like such an uncaring jerkface. Also, in an attempt to really rachet up the miscommunication/assumption parts, the author laid out some conflicting things that I found distracting. Like why would he act like he didn't care but then send text messages telling all? Or why were the burner messages misleading when they were pretending? It's not like the baddies were going to read their text messages. 🤷‍♀️The ending goes a bit whacky into OTT-Land too.

[Bookish.Midnight. and. black · Rating 1 out of 5]

What will you do if you would find under the mattress a hidden phone with text messages between your husband and OW on it? Messages about meetings in hotel rooms, about her missing him.

Easy: you will go on with your life, taking the kids to school, making cookies, and posting photos of said cookies on social media. You will ignore the fact that he comes home late every night from work, that he barely touches you, that he has marks on his neck and lipstick on his collar.

You will go on like this, like nothing happened, without addressing the problem, boring the reader to death with cookies recipes, details about cooking, and your blog. Yup... this is exactly what the heroine did, and in the end, the cheating husband was forgiven because the author created a twist, forgetting that she wrote some things in the beginning, things that contradict the twist.

The conclusion: the wife reaction to cheating was stupid and fake, the author had forgotten what she wrote and I wasted my time

[Mou: Fae of Heartfelt ARC]

A new way to cheat on your wife....
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2410618119

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Received an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for a fair review"
This story appealed to me because of the married couple and the good reviews, but, in the end, I guess it just wasn’t for me and I didn’t finish it. It has plenty of domestic scenes that didn’t grab my attention, an unreasonable and unjustified lack of communication between the main characters and a heroine who feels guilty and tortures herself about things she shouldn’t (the accident with the dog) and a husband who behaves as a prick with his wife because of it.
I didn’t connect with the main characters and the heroine’s “martyr cape” was too much for me, even with all her psychological issues.
I just couldn’t get past the fact that the hero, a cop, was having a double life undercover and that his brilliant mind didn’t feel the need to warn (at least give a hint) his wife about it. In the beginning, with his limited point of view, he seemed a one dimensional character and he came across as a selfish person.
I'm grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a free copy

[Rosalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst husband ever.

I consider it cheating.

He mistreated the wife.

He was into the OW 10000%.

I felt disgusted that it was trying to portray he didn’t do anything wrong when he did.

0 grovel.

What about that make out scene alone that no one saw ?

I feel this book was written with the purpose of demeaning woman...?

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rather enjoyed my first read by this author as marriage-in-trouble angsty reads are catnip and what I've been binging on lately.

Rob and Melissa are going through a rough patch and neither of them seem to want to do anything about it. Melissa is a typical doormat heroine with Ostrichditis - she's pretty good at burying her head in the sand. Rob is an oblivious eejit with a dash of dickhead in him. He was really shitty to Melissa in what he said and did, and she was a total doormat and took it. Why was he so nasty to the woman he "supposedly loved"? Why did he ignore his kids? For his job? And the biggest question - why did he take that under cover job? He not only put his life at risk, but he endangered the lives of his wife and children. The man is a total moron.

There is hinting at cheating and it certainly came across that way although he denies it. She never pushed him on it and he didn't discuss it or even apologise for it getting to the point that she had to question him. The hickey on his neck and lipstick on his collar was just brushed away. Melissa needed to grow a pair and not cave on his say so.

I was left with more questions than answers, and a fair bit wasn't addressed or left unclear. I would've rather had more on this than the plot twist at the end that came out of left field. Yes, it settled the Celeste (OW??) issue, but still left me feeling cheated with the rest that wasn't fleshed out.

[Cc · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 for being well written.

This was kinda all over the place, like it was going to be about a marriage in trouble then jumped up and became a crazy long lost mother, unknown sister, new husband of said long lost crazy, drug addicted mother drug ring take down bust it up cop drama. Oh yeah, and a cooking show. Huh?!?! Oh oh oh - don't forget Theo, the horse that saved the.....whoever.....by biting, yeah you read that right, the HORSE bit the bad, long lost previously unknown sister who we thought was just your garden variety home wrecker cop partner. Ha! Showed us.

The book is kinda like my crazy review.

[Victoria Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25+ Great marriage in trouble book. Rob and Melissa drifted apart, the former because of his job and Melissa because of her food blog and the kids. I know how obsessive one can be running a food blog, been there done that. Was Rob cheating? At first I felt Melissa was too passive after discovering signs that her husband was cheating, but it was explained later why she was reacting that way. I do like the twist and then the ensuing suspense that followed was a welcome surprise.

I really liked the author's writing style and will be checking out her other books.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some reviewers said that the h was weak, perhaps or she was a strong survivor who had nearly lost the ability to trust. The H was short sighted and had a hero/savior complex which almost cost him everything he valued, IMO. Good storyline but I wonder how many police departments would accept outsiders without doing a deep check to verify their credentials and stories, just asking. The survival of both main characters and their marriage took a lot of strength and I would imagine, a lot of counseling.

Re-read. I felt for both of the main characters. The h had an abysmal childhood with an unloving, toxic and cruel mother. She learned to rely on no one and to trust very few. The H made horrible choices in investigating his drug case. I did question why he tolerated his partner when her attitude and behaviors were predatory and unprofessional. He may not have slept with her but there was an emotional attachment that further distanced him from his family. He has a lot of groveling to do.

Take a deep breath

Strong, strong storyline. Great character development. I HAD to know how this ended. The journey was so worth it. I will definitely be following this author.

[Pelusa Rivera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rcvd an ARC at no cost to author..(netgalley) Melissa and Rob were high school sweethearts and now Melissa believes that he is the love of her life he can do no wrong or can he? Melissa finds a her husbands cell phone and another woman texting him, and this is where it went sideways to me, why didn't she confront him? Why? So she is sad, needs something for herself is getting blamed by Rob for not taking care of things and realizing her marriage is not all that great. Rob, I hated him I hated reading his thoughts about another woman, I don't care if supposedly they were in a sting, his thoughts were not they were his and to me he is disgusting, he ended up realizing he loved his wife when another paid her mind. Yeah he sucks.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly well conceived ,twisty and suspenseful contemporary romance with cheating elements.Loved the characters, especially the h and her fabulous sweetness and sense of humor that is highlighted in her relationships with her kids and sister and husband....who pissed me off for much of the tale,but eventually began to redeem himself.However,he definitely had his head where the sun don't shine for a significant portion of the story line.The tale concurrently has depth and an admirable sense of light heartedness.Many signatures of a talented author are found here.Highly recommend!

[Veronica WordsAreMyDrinkOfChoice · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry mission or no mission the husband was an asshole! He treated the wife like rubbish, while constantly comparing the wife to the other woman, and wife always came up short. Was not
Convinced he loved the wife, and that nothing happened with the other woman.

[Lidia's Romance · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was about 90% filler, 10% weakly developed story.

The plot-holes and unresolved issues were annoying. The H’s inner thoughts about the OW (his undercover partner) really rubbed me the wrong way sometimes. Also, he was a clueless detective; it was embarrassing.

[Valeen Robertson (Live Thru Books Blog) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreak at Roosevelt Ranch is a wonderful tale of a marriage hitting a rough patch, and the two leads finding their way back. I haven't read the first installment of this series, but after reading this one, I fully intend on going back and reading it.

Melissa (Miss) is a happily married mother of two awesome kids, with an awesome husband who happens to be a detective. She runs a successful food blog, has a sweet, recently married sister, and her life is pretty great. At least, it is until lately her husband has been pulling away from her and the kids, and she starts getting the feeling he's cheating on her. She's seen some texts on a phone, not HIS phone - the normal one she knows the number to, but one he hides under his mattress, that are from a woman who asks when he's coming to the hotel. Yeah...and then there's the bright red lipstick stain on his collar. And the hickey she spied on him. All pretty bold evidence of cheating. But, she doesn't say anything about it, until she does. She snaps. And I was cheering her on because really, her husband Rob was being a giant bag of dicks to her. Pulling away. Being short with her. Telling her not to go to New York to an audition for a cooking show. Sure he was happy with her cooking when it benefited him, but not when it might mean it would take her away from him. But did he really want her with him? He sure as hell didn't act like it.

Thankfully things all worked out in the end, but not before a lot of crazy things happened, things I surely didn't expect. I kinda felt a little under the water upon reading some of the things that happened, things that must have been back storied in the first story; but it wasn't too bad, I could mostly figure out that Miss had a bad childhood and she had gone without, like seriously without to the point of starving, so that she could feed and take care of her younger sister (the subject in the first story), and it was all thanks to their worthless excuse of a mother. So I would have appreciated just a tiny bit more exposition and detail on Miss and Kelly's childhood so that it would go a long to explaining some of the motivations behind what happened to Miss and Rob in this story. Aside from that, though, and that I thought Rob handled everything in a really shitty, wimpy way, I really liked Heartbreak at Roosevelt Ranch. It's well-paced and features some great characters, especially Melissa. She's the true star of this story and I wish there were more coming about her, perhaps an extended epilogue or even another book about her new chapter in life.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Kathleen Lemke (Kathy Page) · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating: 3 1/2 stars.

What I liked: I loved the kids. I also liked how the h finally grew a backbone and said something to the H. Loved the part when she was holding the vets hand and the H is watching getting upset while at the hospital (he deserved feeling like shit)

What I didn’t like: The H and his stupidity. I just don’t get why he couldn’t tell his wife that he was undercover. I also wished the h would of made him suffer more. She gets mad and afterwards is like I understand (smh). Don’t get me started on the ow and the ending. I needed more...like at the hospital she says they needed to talk but we never get that :(

How hot was it: 3 out 5

Triggers: The H and h are married and he is doing undercover work with a women. They pretend to be a couple which he kisses and makes out with her.

Final thoughts: This was an ok read. I would have definitely given it another star but I just needed more especially at the end :(

[Ajla Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

That took a really unnecessary turn 3/4 of the way in.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started off awful... why wouldn't Melissa confront Rob when she found the phone under her mattress? And to add to that, Rob seemed to really enjoy the attention from Celeste (said something about him forgetting all about his wife and children when she came to him at his desk). I hated it! How could Rob do that!?!?!?
Had I not have been reading this book in order to write a review I would have stopped reading. However, the book takes some turns... I won't give them away. The book redeemed itself some, but I cannot forgive Rob and I still feel Melissa is an idiot for not saying something sooner.

[Merissa (Archaeolibrarian) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreak at Roosevelt Ranch is the second book in the Roosevelt Ranch series, and this time we get to know more about Miss (Melissa), Kelly's sister. She is married to Rob who had recently had a promotion at work, but the cost of this appears to be their marriage.

I was a bit worried about this book before I started it. Call me sappy but I hate to read stories about a marriage gone wrong although I don't mind if they're already divorced or separated. Consider it one of my quirks! Instead, what I found was a story that had me invested from the very beginning. Yes, Miss and Rob's marriage was in danger. Yes, they BOTH had work to do to put it right. And yes, Rob did make some stupid decisions to do with his career. NEITHER of them was blameless, and it took both of them to see it and to try to work it through.

Celeste was the other woman and all I saw was a woman trying waaaay too hard. Every moment that Rob was thinking about her, he was comparing her to Miss, and Miss always came out first. Rob is married, but that doesn't mean he stops seeing other women around him or can appreciate their qualities. So long as he doesn't touch and doesn't wander, I don't see the problem. I can't remember who said it, but "I can look at the menu, honey. I just don't order anything anymore!"

There are some questions left after reading this, questions that Miss also has, so you never know, they may be answered in future books. I'm sure Miss and Rob will play a part in those, just like Justin and Kelly played a part in this one.

The pacing was smooth and the writing was intricate enough to keep my interest. The characters build up from the previous book, and I loved the internal thoughts of both Miss and Rob. This was a great addition to the series, and I have no hesitation in recommending it.

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Nov 14, 2019

[EscapeNBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreak at Roosevelt Ranch is contemporary romance novel. It is definitely a full-length novel but was so darn good that I gobbled it up within hours. I loved the fast pace, the mystery, the twists. The words flowed seamlessly on the page as the characters came to life. I loved that it was just enough puzzle to keep me reading, but not so much that I had to think too hard or throw too many objects. I loved that it had an HEA, and one that I definitely wouldn’t have expected after the reading the first bit of Melissa and Rob’s story. It was the perfect jolt to get me back into book reading mood and make me excited to hunt for the next great read, most likely by this author.

[thi · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5/5
- So this is interesting
- I love a certain kind of angst that this delivered for the most part with minor gripes being everyone ignoring some gigantic red herrings
- oh sir?? your partner blocked your wife and replaced her in your contacts with herself, how goofy
- Somehow that??? Went ignored
- it was a 3 star read until I reached the last 10% where the plot goes takes a ridiculous, laughably stupid plot twist and gets worse and worse
- not to be harsh... but really???????
- Like it ruined the entire book for me
- wow

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that was ridiculously average. Let me explain. The plot was interesting and yes I do love a good book with a filthy cheater... if I can feel the heartbreak and if he can redeem himself or she finds someone worthy. This didn't contain those elements. Now, the overall plot could have been something magnificent. BUT... I needed more groveling, she needed more backbone. The forgiveness was given to quickly. I don't believe his "I never slept with her" bull. Honestly, with how often his inner monologue went on and on about how sexy she was and how she was better then his wife and mother of his children, I find it hard to believe. His actions alone screamed cheater, cheater pumpkin eater.

So the heroine didn't have the back bone I need from my ladies. I can respect her as a mother. She did what she had to do when it came to her kids. The s called "Hero", yeah he seemed kind of cowardly to me.

The writing was decent and the overall idea was good.