Lost Love is the first book in the new Cowboys & Angels series by Kelly Elliott. I was really excited to read this one as it happens to be one of my favorite tropes, second chance romance. While there was a lot to enjoy here, there were a few things that didn't work as well for me and while I liked Lost Love, I didn't love it. I think that it had a lot of promise, but for me it just didn't quite deliver on that.
Steed Parker never expected to wind up back at home on his parents cattle ranch in Texas, but now that he is back he knows it is where he belongs. He left town after breaking his high school girlfriend's heart, but he has never stopped loving her. When he finds himself face to face with Paxton, he knows he will do whatever it takes to win her back. But Paxton has never been able to get over how he hurt her and left her when she needed him the most. Can Steed show Paxton that he is around for good and that he will never hurt her again?
I will admit that part of my problem here was Steed. It was hard for me to get over a few of the things he did, and I really felt like he had dug this huge hole that he was trying to dig himself out of right from the very first page here. While I did feel like he was able to redeem himself for the most part, a part of me still struggled with everything that had happened. I really felt for Paxton and unfortunately I don't know that I would have been able to forgive and move forward as easily as she did which made it hard for me to relate here. These two did have chemistry and a connection, but I just found it hard to get over some of what had happened.
The other thing that I had some issues with was that there really wasn't a lot of conflict here, and at times it felt like things were simply too easy to be entirely believable. There was really only one incident that could have created some conflict and it was resolved almost as quickly as it had started. I just felt like after everything that had happened Paxton let go of it all far more easily than I would have or what I felt like most people would have. While it was clear that there were still feelings there and that she loved him, he had done something that was really hard to move past and the consequences of that continued to have ramifications on their future and I felt like Paxton just let it go really easy. I did like them together and there were some really sweet moments here, and I do think that there are a lot of readers who will love this one. While this one wasn't my favorite of Kelly's, I will definitely read more from her in the future.
**ARC Provided by Inkslinger PR**