I feel like I’ve been in my cowboy romance era lately, so I couldn’t resist reading The Brave and the Reckless. This is the first book I’ve read by Dilan Dyer and I was very intrigued. Today I want to tell you about this book and what I thought.
A big thank you to Netgalley and Dell for providing me with an eARC to read and review. This doesn’t affect my opinion in any way!
Welcome to Bravetown. Saddle up and discover if you are brave enough for the biggest adventure of your life—falling in love.
Moving to the Wild West isn’t exactly part of Esra Taner’s life plan . . . But when she drops out of medical school and her brother suggests she join him at Bravetown, the Wild West theme park where he’s working for the summer, she can’t find a good enough reason to say no.
When she arrives, Esra happens to be the perfect fit for the costumes of Bravetown’s resident damsel in distress, which means she’s about to spend the summer being dramatically abducted by Ace Ryder, the park’s lawless cowboy.
Ace is the definitive yes please with an evil smirk to make you lose your morals, but the man behind the costume, Noah Young, is about as exciting as a granola bar.
Noah and Esra have no interest in each other outside of their performances. But when their stunts start to go wrong and their futures at Bravetown are at risk, Esra and Noah put their differences aside and soon realize the attraction between their characters might not all be for show.
Review
The Brave and the Reckless definitely had a lot of things I love that made me want to pick this up: A small town setting, a theme park, characters who are trying to figure out what they want, banter, tension, and some steamy scenes! The little bits of information about Bravetown or videos posted at the beginning of each chapter were so much fun. I also really appreciated the chronic illness rep.
Our main character Esra never expected to be working at a Wild West amusement park, but here she is. Also, she never expected to be the star in one of the parks performances, but that happened. I will be honest that Esra annoyed me quite a few times throughout this book, but as you get to know her and how she was raised, I get it! Growing up with her chronic illness left her basically in bed all the time with very protective parents. No one will know what they want in life if they never get the chance to figure it out. So it was great seeing her be free and trying out new things. Esra never let the pain get her down. She was a strong heroine I ended up really liking.
Noah is definitely not your typical cowboy and is doing his best to get his family’s ranch back to what it used to be. He’s a bit grumpy in the beginning, but he’s soft and protective on the inside. The fact that he was training one of his horses to be a therapy horse for when the ranch was up and running. The scenes with the horse, Esra, and Noah really just melted my heart.
Now we can’t forget the romance in The Brave and the Reckless. Noah and Esra don’t like each other at all, but their banter was off the charts. I loved seeing them grow closer as they worked together and even the few forced proximity moments we had. They had more in common than they realized and the tension flew off of the pages. I do wish they would’ve just communicated a bit more near the end, but all in all, I loved their development.
The Brave and the Reckless also had an amazing cast of side characters that made this theme park really come to life. I definitely had some laugh out loud moments and I won’t mind it all if the author gives us more time with these amazing characters. I enjoyed my time in Bravetown with Esra and Noah.
While writing this review I saw we’ll be getting another book in Bravetown next year and I’m very excited about that! Have you read any cowboy romances lately? Or books with theme parks? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!
