The Ride of Her Life Review

By Jennifer Dugan

Star rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Spice rating: 🌶️🌶️

Blurb

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 has always loved weddings, ever since she was a little girl, and for nearly as long she’s dreamed of starting her own wedding planning company. But that dream has remained stubbornly out of reach, and between Molly’s first job as a barista, her second at a call center, and her crushing student loans, it seems farther away than ever. The absolute last thing she needs is to inherit a run-down, struggling horse barn, courtesy of her estranged late aunt.

Molly is so ill-equipped to run the barn, it’s laughable. She certainly doesn’t know how to save it, no matter how much faith everyone who loved her aunt has that she will. But maybe her aunt left Molly 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. Doesn’t matter if she’s starting to love the mismatched family this barn brought together, and feeling closer to the aunt she never got a chance to know.

The real snag in her plan is the woman who took care of Molly’s aunt in her last days, and still lives and works on the property as a farrier: Shani. Judgmental, grouchy Shani, who thinks she’s so morally superior because she hasn’t given up on the crumbling barn while Molly wants to “destroy” everything her aunt built; who’s really good with the horses, and always comes whenever Molly calls her in a panic; and is actually kind of thoughtful, and obnoxiously hot, and unfailingly loyal…and oh no, has Shani become an entirely different kind of problem? One Molly can’t possibly solve, no matter how much her heart wants to?

Genre: Contemporary Romance

 

Read if you Like:

🏇 Sapphic romance

🏇 Fish out of water

🏇 Surprise inheritance

🏇 Found family

🏇 Family drama

My Thoughts:

I was super excited to read this one. Grumpy sunshine is always a favorite as is fish out of water. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past my dislike of the mc.

Molly inherits her aunt's house ranch and plans to sell it so that she can start her event planning business. That is completely understandable, but she doesn't communicate her plans well to the people who live here. She spent a lot of time worrying about what people would think of her, and it prevented her from giving people the notice they needed.

I also felt like she had a lot of unhealthy relationships in her life, and I didn't feel like she went far enough to correct those. She decided to make decisions for herself but she still hoped to make up with everyone who had been problematic in her life. I would have liked to see her grow more. Additionally, this felt more like naive and resentful than grumpy sunshine.

I know some people don't mind disliking the main characters and if that is you then you may love this one. I don't think it was poorly written or plotted I just didn't enjoy the main character and the character growth she accomplished.

🌶️🌶️ - This book has one detailed spicy scene and a few other fade to black scenes

Thanks to Avon for providing me with an eARC of this title. All opinions are my own.