The Mountain Monroes is a long-running series about a later generation inheriting a ranch started by a hard-working couple, with provisions. A hotel chain also seems to be involved, but we don’t see that in this instalment. A COWGIRL’S SECRET focuses on Cassie Diaz, who rents a small ranch from the Monroes. They may well ask her family to leave, now that the ownership of the land has changed. In an attempt to win capital, she tried bull-riding. (I know. Not what I would have done.) That didn’t work so well.

Aside from her brief and disastrous bull riding career, which is adding to the family’s financial trouble, Cassie is a horse trainer who used to do trick riding. That qualifies her as a cowgirl, though cattle are scarce in this book.

Second Chance, Idaho, is a small and dusty town, with the new arrival Bentley Monroe likely to be popular. He fixes engines and vehicles. Not much time passes before he spots that Cassie is hiding a serious injury, so he helps her get home after her truck conks out on the road. Her family is storing a barn full of old carnival rides and a Ferris wheel, maybe fit only for scrap. Nobody has the knowledge or enthusiasm to get them running safely. As noted, Bentley likes fixing machines. But if nobody actually wants them, he’s not sure it’s worthwhile.

There are complications in this story that I didn’t enjoy. Olivia Monroe is one of the cousins who was injured badly in a boating accident. The undercurrent seems to be that women try hazardous sports and get hurt. Shane Monroe is a suspicious, aggressive type of man, and he is angrily trying to prove that Tanner Paxton and his children, who turned up recently, are not the second-generation cousins they claim to be. A lot of time is spent on Shane’s viewpoint, which may be legitimate but seems selfish, and with Tanner’s family, who are impoverished but polite. I would like to see a foundation started to help all the townsfolk.

I like the time spent with Cassie and her young relatives, and Bentley, who, if he starts a mechanic’s shop in Second Chance, would probably have customers every day. He is popular with dogs, cats and horses, maybe because they know he won’t put them to work.

Melinda Curtis is deeply involved with the many Monroes by this point, but I feel a new reader would do better to start earlier than this ninth book. A COWGIRL’S SECRET is interesting, and carnival rides make a fun theme with potential for income after a lot of hard work is done. Enjoy this sweet romance in the open landscape.