I don't know if I just had high hopes for this or what but for me it just flopped a little bit. It felt like every other cowboy romance ive read before. There was nothing unique about it to make it stand out from all the rest. Don't get me wrong the spice was great. But apart from that I wasn't a fan unfortunately. This book really didn’t grab my attention

Hocked me right away!


The Silver Pines series by Paisley Hope starts with "Holding the Reins" and tells the story of Nash and CeCe.

Ladies and gentlemen it's getting hot! Nash is everything you would expect from a hot bad boy/hockey player/part time cowboy.

Cecilia, aka CeCe, returns to her Laurel Creek home to be with her family after a failed engagement. What she didn't count on is working for the hot best friend and unofficial fourth member of the Ashby family.

I love the family dynamic! I felt right at home with the Ashbys. The love between each member and the banter won me over to the family right away.
I'm really looking forward to Wade and Cole's story!

Nash is a former hockey player and after retiring, he bought a bar that he now runs just like his other business. Nash captured my heart after just a few pages. He's protective, caring and doesn't shy away from a challenge.
And I like the way CeCe and he are always having duels of words and just their way with each other in general.

CeCe made it difficult for me sometimes. Don't get me wrong! I liked her. She's determined and loves her family more than anything. But I found her a little bit rude to Nash at times. Besides, the term "wild girl" fits her perfectly!

I give "Holding the Reins" 4 out of 5 stars!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

This MMC was a walking red flag I feel like Cece needs a restraining order.

I don’t think a 4-5⭐️ prediction has ever gone so wrong for me, which is a shame as I was super excited for this.

This book felt like a bunch of tropes had been jammed into a book with no alignment or editing. The writing was mediocre at best and overall just felt like a copy of another popular cowboy romance.

I can appreciate what the author was trying to achieve but this really wasn’t for me - the MMC actually concerned me at times and made it feel more dark romance than lighthearted southern-hockey fun.

Thankyou to the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I was very excited for the premise of this book. I am loving all the cowboy related romances at the moment and this one sounded right up my street.

There were a lot of really great things about this book - the setting and the family vibes and also the CeCe’s friendship group. They were all excellent and really added to the story and helped make you feel like one of the gang while reading. It also makes me excited for the future books in this series.

I love friends to lovers and also brother best friend trope so this was sure to hit the spot. I did enjoy the romance between CeCe and Nash, however I found Nash quite an over the top alpha stereotype, that was just a bit much at times. He seems to be in love with CeCe from the getgo, which was a bit strange and could have done with more build up. Also way too much “mine” for my liking.

However the only thing that actually made me rate this as low as I did was the questionable consent, or lack of! It’s usually such a well done thing in contemporary romance that when there was no discussion of consent (particularly towards the end with ‘breath play’) it really took me by surprise and made me feel a bit uncomfortable. There was also the scene where CeCe is insanely drunk, Nash is sober and he’s questioning why he wants to have sec with her when “she’s drunk and vulnerable” and says “do I want to anyways? Hell yes”. So icky and also unnecessary. This sentence should have definitely stayed in the drafts.

However I am excited to continue with this series and I loved the characters. I’m just hoping the consent is better in the following books!

I loved this book , Nash character … well !

I’m not normally a romance reader this was superb thank you for letting me read it

*Edited review* I had to DNF my NetGalley arc because I couldn’t read it on my kindle, there were too many errors, missing words/letters etc.. I waited until the book was published and bought the kindle so now I can give it an actual review!

3.75⭐️

Sometimes you just need a little spicy cowboy romance in your life!

This was a fast easy read for me and the perfect palette cleanser in between fantasies that I’ve been reading.
The setting was perfect, the family and friends were great side characters and I loved Nash and CeCe, both separately and together.

I’m looking forward to reading Wade’s book BUT I think Ginger and Cole might be the best book.. I can’t wait to read that one!

Tropes
• Brothers best friend
• Small town romance
• Found Family
• Age Gap
• Possessive MMC

First of all, thank you netgalley for gifting me this book. Also, for the excellent service from them and Paisley herself regarding this book as there was an error and they resolved it really quickly. The book itself is amazing, and the cowboy, pwoar. If you love cowboy books and need your fix? This will be right up your street

“little firefly”

this book was EVERYTHING to me. Firstly the mmc Nash is a retired hockey player x part time cowboy SIGN ME RIGHT UP nothing i love more than a hockey player and a cowboy and to mix it into one MMC is exactly what I need. I absolutely loved everything in this book, it had small town vibes, found family, TENSION, loss, love, age gap, HE FALLS FIRST, friendship and the MMC basically worships the ground FMC Cece walks on.

Cece moves back to her small town after a bad breakup with her ex fiancee and that’s when Nash her big brothers bestfriend slots himself right back in her life just like he was when she was growing up. The tension in this book was impeccable I was screaming for them to kiss or even hold hands ANYTHING. It was just perfect in every sense I truly believed they loved each other and I was properly swooning over them.

UMMMMM THE SPICE WAS AMAZINGGGGGG !!! We all love a man who has a filthy mouth and that is exactly what Nash has. This man was just something else and the way he CRAWLED to Cece YES HE ACTUALLY CRAWLED. I was gone, dead, deceased. He is also so possessive in the most amazing way he loves Cece with every fibre in his being :((((

The whole found family dynamic was perfection I love every single character and I can’t wait to see them in other books. The banter they all had was perfect (dare I say new favourite found family)

There isn’t anything negative to say I absolutely adored the writing, the characters and plot. I will be thinking about Nash Carter for the rest of my life :)

I absolutely loved this book!
The small town vibes were exactly want you want in a book, where they know everyone and there’s no much gossip.
This was exactly what I needed this summer.

This book was my first dive into the Cowboy/Hockey player tropes, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

The story mainly features CeCe Rae Ashby and Nash Carter-CeCe's big brothers' best friend. Set on the Ashby families' ranch in a small town in Kentucky, but with retired pro-ice hockey player (Nash), helping out as a part time cowboy. CeCe has recently left a long term relationship with her serial cheater ex-fiance Andrew and moved back home to Kentucky from Seattle. Nash grew up being treated as family by the Ashby's, after tragedy struck his family when he was young. CeCe and Nash end up spending a lot of time together once CeCe moved home and a secret relationship developed from there.

I do not want to give away the whole plot, but I will say that this book was a stereotypical romance and you can easily predict what will happen at the end, though it is an easy read. It was quite spicy in parts, but I sometimes felt that there was more spice than story substance. I don't mind spice in books, but I did feel like there was quite a lot of repetitiveness in the spice scenes in this book, such as calling a certain part of the female anatomy 'slice of paradise'. There were also quite a few similar terms in this book that I have read in other 'spicy' books (such as 'apex of my thighs'), which I can't help but cringe when I read. Just for context, I'm in my 30's and I've never heard any people in their 20's/30's/40's use those words in real life or on movies etc, it all seems a little outdated. I also find this repeated constantly with many other 'spicy book' authors (such as T L Swan), to the point that I can't help but eye roll at times and it actually puts me off reading some of the other books in a series, as it can make a lot of the spice scenes seem a little 'copy and pasted' and unrealistic.

I generally liked this book for the feel-good family and friends close relationships/bonds, but I can say that I wouldn't read it again. I also won't be reading 'Training the Heart' which is another book in this series, which has Wade (CeCe's brother) as a MMC. I felt that Holding the Reins was a little too predictable for my liking, which would have dropped it down to a 4* rating. However, certain story lines didn't really seem to go anywhere and seemed unnecessary, such as the restaurant scene with Andrew toward the end of the book. There were times when Wade also seemed unnecessarily rude and arrogant. I'm guessing some of these storylines may play out or be explained further into the series, but I didn't feel engaged enough in Holding the Reins to want to read any others in the series. Also, although I wanted to love Nash, I didn't like his behaviour in certain scenes, which seemed violent and controlling/stalkerish at times. It would be a red flag to me if it happened in real life (even if I did know why he acts in the way he does), so this affected my enjoyment of the book in parts. The end also felt quite rushed. I did like the fact that the book was written in both CeCe and Nash's dual POV. All in all, I'm giving Holding the Reins a 3 star rating. It's a shame as with a few plot tweaks and with less cringey spice scenes, I think it could have been a much better book.

I'm grateful to Paisley Hope, the publishers and Netgalley for the free advance reader copy of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

A raunchy romance.
If you like a bit of spice to your romance, this is for you. Set in Kentucky, on a horse ranch, Cee-see has returned home after a bad relationship. Her new boss is Nash, a retired pro ice hockey player who grew up with her family.
Terrific feisty characters, great settings.

Where do I start? I adored this book to begin with and thought it would be. a solid 5 star read. I loved the opening, the friendship, the family dynamic. I loved the fact Nash realised by opening up to Cece it helped him, The fact he became her boss. Sonny's banter with Nash was amazing. I liked their relationship what I did not like was how Seattle was handled. IT made sense and I get the feelings behind it and that he was her safety but I wish she was able to stand for herself rather then having to have a man do it, We all knew Andrew was pulling something but she also could of communicated with him better I did like how he spoke to her family and made up. Overall I really enjoyed this is was only in the last sort of 20 percent I struggled. I am going to read more of the series as I did love the writing style.

I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this book, I haven’t read a cowboy romance before and had seen everywhere about Holding the Reins.

I absolutely loved this book! It has a lovely story and everyone needs a Nash Carter in their lives! The build up of Nash and CeCe makes you want more.

The book has you laughing, emotional and it’s spicy 🌶️ where I found myself blushing!

This is a must read for those wanting an easy read with a lot of spice! I can’t wait to read Wade and Ivy’s story!!

In Holding The Reins we follow CeCe who returns to her Kentucky hometown after leaving her cheating fiancé. She is reunited with the hero Nash who is a retired hockey player and part time cowboy. CeCe thinks he’s still a bit of player but in reality Nash has seemingly always only ever had eyes for her.

I really enjoyed this and I believe this is the authors debut and for that I think they did a really good job. The small town setting had the perfect vibes but I felt once the characters realised how they felt there was much more than smut for a big portion of the books. For some people this would make them pick it up immediately haha so I’m not saying it was bad but for me personally it felt we slightly lost some potential as it seemed to go for more smut over storyline. But overall I did like this story and would love to read more from the author in the future!

It was set up well for other books to follow in a series following Ceces friends and family and I’d love to see where they all end up.
Thank you to NetGalley for sending me a copy to review.

4.5 stars 🌟

Well I think I'm a cowboy romance reader now!

The spice and dirty talk in this book is *chef's kiss*. In fact most of this book is just incredible. I whizzed through it because it was so good. It's just so easy and enjoyable to read. I love the set up of the Ashby family and Silver Pines ranch, you can't help but fall in love with them all.

Huge thanks to Penguin Random House for the ARC

3.25 ⭐️

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 75% of this but the final quarter of this book just lost me unfortunately.

I loved the setting, and the dynamic between characters. Also ex hockey player turned cowboy? Yes please!

I’m never normally one to be critical of a book for the sex scenes or smut, but I did find there was just A LOT in this book.

Towards the end of the book I found Nash slightly too possessive, boarding on stalkerish? And I just felt that the conflict with the ex came out of nowhere when it could have been handled much better.

Overall though and enjoyable read and it has made me want to pick up the next in the series!

I really wasn’t sure what to expect with this one but I absolutely loved it. I loved the characters, the plot, the spice! Everything about this was so enjoyable and I’m so glad I requested the second so I can dive straight in to that!

Okay this was sooo cute I LOVED ITTT!!! A mixture of cowboys & hockey players - sign me up babes!!!

The spice in this is IMPECCABLE, there is sort of a miscommunication trope but it’s not as bad as they usually are so I’d still recommend reading tbh!!!

Holding The Reins

I always see ‘spicy’ books on social media - and the snippets of spice never seem to outweigh the terrible writing and ridiculous story…so I was really excited that I actually liked this book! I wasn’t a fan of the first chapter - it was a bit meh - but once we started to get to know CeCe - back in her small Kentucky hometown of Laurel Creek after leaving her cheating fiancé in Seattle - I started to get swept up in the small town southern charm running through this story. I liked Nash too - an old family friend of CeCe’s and on hand to take care of her (in more ways than one) as she finds her feet starting her life over. Lots of fun characters, a love story and the spicy scenes…well! Looking forward to reading the next in the series & finding out more about CeCe’s big brother Wade.

A less raunchy book but still a great story, this is more about the relationship then the sex although there is plenty of X-Rated content in there still