1000 Words A Day Press
Featuring: Molly McDaniel; Shani
352 pages ISBN: 0063307510 EAN: 9780063307513 Kindle: B0CGT7MGZH Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List
Molly McDaniel works a barista job with no benefits, and a second job, trying to pay her student loans. She hopes to be a wedding planner. I enjoy a story where the main character inherits a run-down business and has to try to turn it around. In THE RIDE OF HER LIFE, Molly is surprised to receive notice that her aunt Christina has passed away and left her something. Yes, that turns out to be a small-scale horse ranch.
What I can’t understand is why, with no other relatives than Molly and her mom, anyone was surprised that Christina left the farm for her city niece. Molly was shocked… but we could have expected her mother to contest a will that left the ranch outside the family. Anyway, somehow a lady farrier, Shani Thomas, who grew up on the ranch from her teenage years, thought it should come to her. Shani’s brother Lochlin is an accomplished rodeo rider with sponsorship deals, so both of them are trained and earning, and I don’t see that Christina had any more responsibility for them.
Molly is an antiheroine. She’s had to move back in with her mom and is dependent on her best pal Nat for help, advice and extra shifts. Even advice on the ranch, which seems to be a case of selling and clearing her loans. As Christina had been poorly and it’s post-pandemic, everything is run down and there’s not much cash in the bank. The executor Michael, a lawyer, and Ashley the real estate agent, are the only people in town Molly speaks with. She semi-commits to staying for a few months to patch the place up, and gets friendly with some horse boarders, but never tries to be part of this nameless town. Strong language and abusive gestures are her conversation. I really felt Molly had no manners.
I like that an elderly horse, Otis, is retired and happy. I don’t like that no books on horse care exist in this farmhouse – anyone who keeps horses has many books on the topic. Instead, rider JJ makes TikToks with his horse while Molly, who knows nothing about horses, is left to get things wrong. Molly does work hard, I’ll give her credit. This is a gay romance, but I don’t find it romantic that two women stare strangely at each other and argue, try to make friends and argue more, so I’ll leave it at that.
Jennifer Dugan describes herself as a young adult writer. Most of the characters in THE RIDE OF HER LIFE are twentysomething, and I would class it as New Adult. The various female relationships are interwoven to both support and strangle the main character, and it’s not long before the reader starts hoping she’ll cut some strings.
From the author of Love at First Set, a new irresistible enemies-to-lovers, grumpy/sunshine queer romcom for fans of Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, about a wedding-obsessed city girl who inherits a horse farm from her estranged late aunt, and clashes with the cocky, unfairly hot farrier who thinks she’s going to run the barn into the ground.
Molly McDaniel’s life is falling apart. Between her day job as a barista, her night job at a call center, and her crushing student loans, she’s barely getting by. And that dream she has of starting a wedding event planning business? The dream that led to all those student loan in the first place? She can feel it slipping farther and farther out of reach every day. So the absolute last thing she needs is to discover she’s inherited a run-down, struggling horse barn out of the blue, courtesy of her estranged late aunt.
Molly is so ill-equipped to run the barn, it’s laughable. She certainly doesn’t have the money, time or knowledge needed to save it, no matter how much faith everyone who loved her aunt has that she will. But the more Molly gets involved, the more she starts to wonder: maybe the barn is a blessing in disguise. If she can sell the land, the profits could be the small-business seed money miracle she’s been waiting for. So what if she’s starting to love everyone in the mismatched family she’s found here?
Well, everyone except Shani, the resident farrier and family friend who took care of Molly’s aunt in her last days. Judgmental, grouchy Shani, who refuses to give up on the barn; who walks around like she so much better than Molly; who’s actually really good with the horses…and kind of thoughtful. And obnoxiously hot. And unfailingly loyal.
And suddenly, Shani has become an entirely different kind of problem, one Molly can’t possibly solve, not without risking her whole future, no matter how much her heart wishes she could.
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