Review of Done and Dusted (Rebel Blue Ranch #1) by Lyla Sage

I loved the premise, in which a golden girl and barrel-racer returns home to small-town Wyoming to figure out her future. I was looking for more assertiveness from Emmy and less of a dynamic in which men solve women's problems, but this was entertaining, spicy, and sets up Lyla Sage's Western romance series.

In Done and Dusted, the first book in Lyla Sage's modern-day Western romance series, Clementine "Emmy" Ryder is the golden girl of Meadowlark, Wyoming. Her unexpected return to her hometown delights her sassy best friend, protective older brothers, grizzled and loving father, and the rest of the town.

But Emmy hasn't told anyone that her ADHD impulsiveness led her to pack up and leave her barrel-racing career after a bad fall that shook her confidence and made her question everything in her life--except her home, Meadowlark.

Luke Brooks is a local bar owner, a recognized womanizer, Emmy's brother's longtime best friend, and an honorary member of the Ryder family. He and Emmy have always irritated each other, and their age difference meant they were in different worlds as teenagers.

But Luke and Emmy are older and wiser than when they last saw each other--and Luke and his muscle tees seem to be cropping up everywhere these days. Can Emmy overcome her secret fears of riding and get back to her love of horses again? And in the meantime, can Luke help get her mind off her troubles with his handsome face and irresistible bad-boy attitude?

I love the novel's premise, in which Emmy returns home to rethink her life and figure out her future while working hard and getting back to her roots. The family ranch is an irresistible setting for potentially entertaining dynamics with her brothers and father, and for outdoorsy activity and tough-girl demonstrations of knowledge and ability as Emmy gets back on her feet.

The men in Done and Dusted, particularly Luke, are largely determined to show that they are capable and in charge, strut their muscles, and save little ladies from themselves. This is not a dynamic I'm totally comfortable with, but I loved the promise of Emmy's reinvigorated, independent new outlook--and I acknowledge that a rugged ranch setting might very well involve strong characters demonstrating their strength.

Spoiler: there are, fairly promptly in the book, highly detailed intimate scenes between Luke and Emmy. And within these (then also within everyday encounters), Luke frequently calls Emmy "Sugar." This seems like a minor point, but it felt both condescending and potentially (creepily) fatherly to me within their very verbal sexual encounters--and unfortunately, it comes up often.

I'm not looking to nitpick sex scenes, but Luke felt so immediately bossy and in charge during their passionate encounters (while making demands of "Sugar"), I was instantly annoyed. I was looking for more of Emmy's assertiveness and hoped for a turning of the tables. Ultimately their dynamic feels egalitarian in the bedroom--and if he is more domineering, Emmy's fine with it. But Luke's desire continues to seem to be centered around dominating her, what she can do for him, and pushing her to tell him how much she wants all of this, versus his focusing on serving Emmy, and I was increasingly irritated by this. For example, his fantasies upon seeing her wearing red lipstick take an instantaneous, (for me) alarmingly dominating turn, and I strongly wanted him to take it down a notch in general.

It's possible that I might have processed the sexual and general power dynamic more generously if I'd realized that Sage envisioned Luke Brooks as a grown-up Tim Riggins-type of character (Friday Night Lights), which she mentions in her notes at the end. (But even so, the "Sugar" nickname was a nonstarter for me.)

It's not fair for me to want a Western romance to be less romance and more Western, but I did, and even more so, I wished that Emmy held more of her fate in her own hands. The trauma of Emmy's getting back on a horse feels quite easily addressed--and, somewhat unsatisfyingly, the transformation from fear to confidence largely relies upon Luke. I yearned for Emmy to take charge of facing her own horse-related fears, ideally while taking charge of Luke in private moments, but this isn't quite the dynamic Sage builds in the novel.

Yet Done and Dusted is entertaining, spicy, and sets up a long-term Emmy-Luke romance.

I read Done and Dusted as an audiobook. There are three more books in this series.

For more romantic books you might like, please check out the books at this link. And for Western books I've liked, check out these titles.