I recently read the entire Chestnut Springs series because one of the books, “Heartless”, was recommended by my coworker who already owned the book and was kind enough to let me borrow it. I loved that book so much I bought the rest of them to read the whole series!
The Chestnut Springs series is a romance series about a family of brothers, and a few of their close friends, finding their wives. I will say I read them a little out of order, but one of the things I love about interconnected standalones is that you don’t necessarily need to read them in order. I think the main thing that set this series apart for me was that all the boys grew up on Wishing Well Ranch, a cattle farm in Canada. Two of the brothers are bull riders (😍), one of them still runs the ranch for their retired father, one is in the military, and one of them is a hockey player. All the books also have little epilogues about the boys’ father trying to find love again, too.
I think my favorite of the 5 books is Reckless, since the main character Theo is an active bull rider through most of the book. One thing about me is I love a good rodeo, and apparently I like reading about fake ones, too 😂 My favorite man in the series is probably Cade, which is the main character of “Heartless”. I like him most probably because he has a personality similar to Nate; kind of surly and always looks angry unless you know them really well. He also manages the farm for his father, which I respect. He is also the oldest of the siblings, so we have that in common.
My favorite female character is a little harder to pick. While I recognize that all the characters in the series have redeeming qualities, the women all seem to have something about them that I admire.I guess my top three are Summer, Winter, and Willa, but not in any particular order. Summer is so incredibly strong. Winter (Summer’s sister) has the best character development in the series. Willa has my favorite personality of all the women.
One thing that seems to be a common thing in romance novels that I have read is that the man does something to make the woman angry so they break up and end up getting back together. After a while, this theme gets boring because it’s so par for the course. The Chestnut Springs series doesn’t have a lot of this, which I really appreciate. Elsie Silver does a great job making these stories interesting without overusing predicable conflict. If you like a country lifestyle type book with some awesome characters, you should check this series out. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
