Cattenach Ranch

I received an arc from NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.
Wow these two books really struck the heart with the background stories around PTSD and trauma.
Nate comes to the ranch on a promise to Olivias brother and learns that he can be loved.
Amy, a victim of domestic violence and childhood trauma, also reconnects with Nakos in the second book and learns she deserves love too and she is enough.
Both great reads and I would read this author again.

Redemption:

This story is so good I didn't want to finish it too soon.
I recommend you all to read it if you like your romantic stories full of emotions and chemistry and struggles and hope.

Nate is an ex soldier,he was released from the army after an accident that cost him a few months in a german medical center and the life of his only friend.
He went to the Cattenach ranch to honor a promise, to take care of Justin's sister,but he didn't know yet that he will also find his friend last gift over there.
My favorite character is Olivia,I loved her strength,her pure heart and her ability to empathize with every other character.I liked how she subtly (and not) pushed Nate out of his shell,making him show his real self and making him understand his real value.

You cannot not love these characters and cheer for them to find their happily ever after.
I can't wait to read the second book in this series.


Benediction:

It was such a pleasure to be back to the Cattenach Ranch and this story will grasp your heart from the beginning.
Kelly Moran's words will stay with me for a long time.

I loved Nakos,he grew so much from the first book,he finally find out his real feelings for his best friends Olivia and Amy and he acts on them.
I appreciated his kindness,his strength and his patience that will help him to show Amy her real worth.

Two wonderful stories linked yet can be read as stand-alone tales. Nate grew up in foster homes and had a terrible childhood, which had shaped how he dealt with life as an adult, feeling guilt over the death of his friend he finds it difficult to accept the love Olivia shows him. In the second Amy grew up unloved and abused and after being beaten by her husband needs to accept she is both loveable and that the love Nakos has for her is real. Very well written emotional stories.

This is a Cottenach Ranch Anthology and contains two books. These 2 books are brilliant, really well written, good stories which kept me interested from the beginning. Great characters which are also believable.

This box set has two fantastic stories which I absolutely devoured!

REDEMPTION (4 Stars):
They say don’t judge a book by its cover. But let’s be honest...we all do it anyway. Authors know we do it - otherwise they wouldn’t put shirtless men on the cover hoping to entice us to read their book! So when I see a cover that defies the stereotypical romance cover (scantily clad, busty woman with long, flowing hair) in favor of a completely covered, normal looking woman with super-short hair, I take notice. And that’s how I previously became aware of Kelly Moran. But as we all know, a good cover doesn’t make a story good.

What does make a good story? Emotionally gripping writing and compelling, sympathetic characters. Which is what Kelly Moran has mastered.

Olivia Cattenach and her younger brother, Justin, inherited the family ranch in Wyoming when their parents died twenty years ago. Now, her brother has been killed during a suicide bombing in Iraq, leaving her to run the ranch alone. When Nathan Roldan shows up at the ranch with a letter from Justin, Olivia is determined to hang on to the person her brother befriended while he was overseas.

Such a conundrum, Nathan Roldan. Grizzly bear on the surface, teddy underneath.

Olivia offers the quiet, mysterious man a job on the ranch. He’s reluctant to take it, but without any other options, and needing to fulfill his promise to Justin to watch over Olivia, he stays. As Olivia spends time with Nate, she begins to suspect Nate hasn’t had the best life.

Her heart cracked in half. Nakos had been right, as were her suspicions. It seemed Nate never had anyone in his life he cared about and, when faced with genuine emotion, he hadn’t a clue to handle it. What had happened to him, this gentle giant? How could a person go their whole life completely...alone? Worse, she wondered how she was going to repair that kind of damage.

Olivia is drawn to Nate in a way she’s never been to anyone else before. While Nate tries to keep her at arm’s length, Olivia does her best to show him what he’s been missing in his life - family and connections.

“Olivia.” He sighed. “You keep doing that. Reversing the clock hands, dragging me back to the beginning. Why? It’s in the past.”
“Because it made you who you are.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing to me or why you’re hell-bent on trying to fix me, but…” He shook his head again as if at a loss for how to finish.
“Fixing you implies that you’re broken.” With a heavy heart, she wondered if it was possible to undo a lifetime of damage. “There’s nothing wrong with you, aside from a misguided sense of guilt.”

And Nate has a lot of guilt. About mistakes he made growing up, mistakes he made that resulted in people dying in Iraq, and about not controlling his feelings for Olivia. But Olivia is a strong woman, and isn’t going to let Nate walk away without a fight.

Unflinching, unblinking, he went stone-cold still and started. “You’re a square peg and I’m a round hole, baby. We don’t fit.”
“Then we’ll build our own world in the shape of us.”

“Life is scary, more so if navigating alone.”

There’s not much better than the story of the tortured war hero who finally finds a peaceful life because of the love of a good woman. Ms. Moran does an amazing job of creating the noble, conflicted heroes with tragic pasts, and strong women who heal their pain. Her books are emotional, but not so gut wrenching that I’m a total, emotional mess when I read them. Witty, charming characters help counter-balance the intense emotions. I love her writing, I love her characters, I love the stories she writes. And I can’t wait to read more from her!

BENEDICTION: (5 Stars);
It’s been quite a while since a book has affected me as profoundly as Benediction has. The story of Amy and Nakos has touched me deeply, and I find my mind sputtering to get my thoughts about this beautiful story onto paper.

Amy is a heartbreaking character. After a severe beating at the hands of her husband (which we read about during the first book in the Cattenach series - Redemption), she’s not the same person she used to be.

A few years ago, she would’ve been the first person out of her seat and speaking her mind. But her I-can-handle-anything, tell-me-whose-ass-I-need-to-kick persona had died when she’d said I do. It wasn’t coming back. That was the day her give-a-shit broke, the day hope began its slow suffocation. Up until that point, she’d been darn good at faking it. Except the age-old mantra hadn’t worked because she never did make it.

But even before the assault, Amy’s life wasn’t very happy. She grew up with parents who didn’t care for her and treated her terribly, and the boy she had loved her whole life, Nakos, was in love with her best friend Olivia. She was okay with that, though, because Olivia and Nakos were her true family, and as long as she had them, she was fine.

Though her shoulders sank and an all too familiar hollowness filled her chest cavity, Amy did what she always had - she accepted reality and ignored the loneliness. “Go ahead. I’m okay. Thank you for helping.”

At the hand of a lesser writer, Amy would have seemed pitiful and pathetic. But Kelly created a heroine who was heartbreaking and sympathetic. So many times my chest felt tight when I was reading her thoughts and feelings. How does an author DO that?!

When Nakos walked into the barn and discovered Amy beaten, bloody, and barely conscious, something inside him changed. With Olivia recently falling in love with Nathan, he’d come to the realization that he hadn’t ever really been in love with Olivia.

Olivia may have owned a good chunk of his heart, but Amy was the keeper of his soul… His protective instinct carried through to both women, but it hadn’t been until Amy was put in danger that his world shifted. Or righted, depending on how he viewed it.

With Amy so completely broken and empty, Nakos wanted nothing else but to heal her and fill her up. Not since Worth the Wait by Claudia Connor have I read a heroine so empty and broken, but then healed and made whole again by the sheer determination and patience of a good man. It was heartbreaking and beautiful. How tender and thoughtful Nakos was with Amy was just...beautiful.

He settled as dead weight on top of her, didn’t lift his head to look at her, but his hand held the side of her face as if scared she might not be real. Heaving air, ruffling her strands, he finally said something she could understand. “I was always yours, and now you’re mine.”

There's a time and a place for the caveman alpha male. But in a ridiculously deep and wide sea of grunting and bossy heros in today's books, I get weak in the knees for these kind, thoughtful, patient heros. If I had a list of favorites, Nakos would rank right up near the top.

Even though this book is fairly heavy, it is also interspersed with a generous dose of humor. Amy, despite being knocked down repeatedly, is still pretty spunky.

She nodded, unsure of what to say. In a few short sentences, he’d pegged her to a T, and all because they were the same, her and Nate. “Is there a reason you brought this up or are you just pulling a Humphrey Bogart beautiful friendship moment out of your ass?”

I found myself so grateful for the many times I was able to laugh, because this story is otherwise so incredibly tragic. But the deeper the despair, the higher you go when Nakos is able to heal Amy’s hurts.

Kelly Moran is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. For heartfelt and hopeful stories, she has mastered the art of taking me on a journey full of ups and downs. And I LOVE every single page she writes.