Review: "Done and Dusted" by Lyla Sage (Rebel Blue Ranch, #1) ★★★★

Review: Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage

This was so adorable! I read this so quick you could say it was… done and dusted in no time hehe — wait, no don’t go! Come back, I’ll try and lessen the puns. But in all seriousness, I have been roped into this series and excited to read more! Small-town cowboy forbidden romance between brother’s little sister and brother’s best friend, with a mixture of sweet found family and utterly filthy spicy moments. Some of the plot itself felt a little too cliché and rushed but, overall, a delightful story.

Luke lifted his hand to my face and tucked my hair behind my ears. “You are something else, Emmy Ryder.” His eyes were soft, content. Like he could stay here with me all day. The way he was looking at me turned my heart upside down. If I wasn’t careful, I could fall head over heels for this man before I even knew what was happening.

PLOT SUMMARY
27-year-old Clementine “Emmy” Ryder is a four-time champion and record-breaking barrel racer until a riding accident forces her to return to her hometown in Meadowlark, Wyoming (a place she has been gone from for about a decade). She is too shaken up to ride again and gets panic attacks whenever she tries, but doesn’t want anyone to know the real reason she’s back home at Rebel Blue Ranch.

Enter 32-year-old Luke Brooks, former bad boy turned owner of the bar The Devil’s Boot, who used to antagonise Emmy as a kid. After being rejected by his father and his mother’s new husband and family turn him away, he finds a family in the Ryders. When Emmy shows up, he is immediately drawn to her but she cannot forget the man he was and refuses to believe he has changed.

Luke also happens to be teaching horse riding at Rebel Blue Ranch, and offers to help get her back on track for the Divisional Circuit of the WPRA (Women’s Professional Rodeo Association) tour when it comes to Meadowlark. The more time they spend, the more Emmy realises she is wrong about her impressions of him and the more Luke realises he has fallen hopelessly in love with her.

She is her brother August’s “Gus” little sister (a man who helped him when they were in school, and someone he very much looks up to) and therefore off-limits, but one thing leads to another. Luke does not want to be Emmy’s secret, but will he have any choice? And will Emmy overcome her trauma and win the Divisionals?

This is told from the first-person past-tense dual POV of Emmy and Luke.

OVERALL OPINIONS
I loved this, I really loved this! Enough said! A quick and easy read, which makes a change. I loved all the characters, and the display of a tight-knit community. How characters were introduced, from Emmy’s family to Luke’s family to Emmy’s friend Teddy and her father was well done: I was given all the information I needed to understand the relationship dynamics through history and now.

Lyla Sage sets the scene for all her couples in her Rebel Blue Ranch series in her first book here, something that is not easily done so cowboy hat off to her.

These are:

🐎Emmy and Luke (Book 1 Done and Dusted) – of course.

🏚️Ada and Wes (Book 2 Swift and Saddled) – we are told Wes has a plan to make a small guest ranch and Teddy says she knows an interior designer called Ada with a large social following who can help with it. This establishes the plot for Book 2 already.

➰Teddy and Gus (Book 3 Lost and Lassoed) – the most interesting of them all. From the get-go, we can tell that Gus and Teddy do not get on at all. Overprotective Gus thinks Teddy is a bad influence on Emmy, and Teddy dislikes him for disliking her. Their tension is very apparent, and their banter is soo funny! (“Theodora, I thought I banned you from Rebel Blue,” [Gus] said. He was very obviously annoyed. | “I thought I told you if you called me that I would shove a fence post down your throat,” Teddy said in a sickly sweet voice.). She is the only one to calm him down after he punches Luke, saying it is a poor example to set for his daughter Riley who was watching him. I am most eager to read Lost and Lassoed, they have to be my favourite duo!

💞 Cam and Dusty (Book 4 Wild and Wrangled) – while only Camille “Cam” is introduced here as Gus’ former lover. They had a one-night stand resulting in Riley and became co-parents as they feel they are not compatible relationship-wise. She is engaged to someone else here, though we are not given the fiancé’s name. This is technically foreshadowing as according to the blurb, he eventually abandons Cam at the wedding aisle. Dusty is introduced in Book 2. A second-chance romance.

I am a little surprised by the writing, to be honest. The style itself is quite to the point, the paragraphs are not very long so the vibes were giving the young adult genre… until the *adult* scenes started showing up – and boy did those few scenes show up and dominate the pages when they did! It’s like 50 Shades of Grey broke down the Hallmark doors. So I was confused but certainly not complaining (the opposite, in fact). I seldom really giggle and kick my feet with spice unless it’s that good, and it was. Do with that information what you will.

Interestingly, Emmy is a tall woman so not a stereotypical type in a romance book, and we love to see that! And a man who is naturally muscular due to hard work – take that, Ali Hazelwood, with your tall, dark, broad-built science men and petite women (with the exception of Not In Love as Rue was tall)!

Overall, as previously mentioned, I really like it, this has got me back into Western romances but the pacing messed with the characterisation depth.

<< Positives >>
🠚The cover is really stunning, very retro! I like that in the Acknowledgements, Sage says that she was inspired by vintage rodeo posters in her own hometown.
🠚The heading images/chapter openers are so cute! I love that it changed with the POV: for Emmy, it is a boot and for Luke it is a cowboy hat. Cuter still, for the Epilogue, the two images combined so there is the hat and boots. This was a really nice touch!
🠚The bond between Emmy’s father Amos Ryder with both Emmy and Luke. The way he opens up to Emmy about her mother and her freak accident, as well as reminiscing on older times when he first met her was a lovely father-daughter bonding moment. And when he says to Luke “Thank you, for taking care of my baby girl” – that was so friggin sweet! He is literally the father Luke never had and we love to see that.
🠚It was good that Sage included both the healthy and toxic dynamics in families: the healthy aspect shown through the Emmy’s, and the unhealthy shown through Luke’s family.
🠚The spice was excellent! Save a horse, ride a cowboy, yessir!
🠚No third-act breakups. I don’t always mind it, I’m actually surprised it wasn’t here considering how Luke felt about Emmy keeping their relationship a secret from everyone.
🠚The handling of Emmy’s trauma and panic attacks was very well done.
🠚ADHD and sensory issues representation.

<< Negatives >>
🠚There were too many clichés in this book for me to enjoy it as much as I’d have liked. It felt like Sage wanted to take everything she knew (and potentially liked) in a contemporary romance and threw it all together.
🠚Because of my former point, the pacing felt off. Like, a lot was happening but there was *too* much to the extent that there was not enough depth to any of the characters really.
🠚I thought there was going to be forced proximity for Luke and Emmy via the chores needed done at the ranch. I feel this was a wasted opportunity.
🠚Another wasted opportunity was Emmy not telling Teddy why she was back in the hometown, surprised Teddy took it so well, I won’t lie.
🠚“Sugar” is a term of endearment and it was said 49 times in this book – and that felt like 49 times too many haha I’m sorry. Okay, I’ll be nice, maybe 40 times too many.
🠚No sooner than 20 pages in and Luke is already imagining “how she’d look wrapped up in bedsheets…my bedsheets.” – I cringed because this was way too soon. Insta-love bombed right there. Messes with chemistry.

CHARACTERS
-ˋˏ ꒰ Emmy꒱ ˎˊ-
↳ She is very sweet, no wonder she is Meadowlark’s sweetheart. I felt so sorry for her having her passion and ability to ride lost in an instant because of an accident, and even more so once you discover that her mother was killed in a freak accident. I am so glad she is able to conquer her fear and take a final bow in the Divisional. Her mother would be proud of her!
🠚I adore that he stands up for Luke in front of his horrid half-brother J.J.
🠚Fellow bookworm, I love that she has packed all her books and Luke is like “What the hell is in here?” haha. Aaand I relate so much to her saying “I stay up late. I like the quiet.” – literally, same gurl!

“You’ve been there for me since I got home. I don’t want you to have to do this alone.”

-ˋˏ ꒰ Luke꒱ ˎˊ-
↳ He is patient, kind, supportive, protective everything you want in a man really! I love that he waits for Emmy to confide in him, and supports her when she does. The things Luke does for Emmy to help her ride again, even setting up the clover barrel course for her to practice in is so lovely of him!
🠚He deserves the world; I cannot imagine being rejected by not only your father but your mother’s extended family too. I agree when Emmy says she cannot believe he turned out so amazing considering his awful upbringing. I am so glad the Ryder’s took them in as their own. It makes sense why he struggles so much with being a secret of Emmy’s – because it looks like he is screwing around with her for fun and nothing serious and it feels like a betrayal of the family’s trust.
🠚We love that he opens the car door for her! And he is so sexy, too, like dayum – to quote Emmy “This man and his dirty mouth.”! Maybe the “sugar” nickname will grow on me…

“Sugar, you deserve to go out on your own terms. Just because you got dusted, doesn’t mean you’re done.”

-ˋˏ ꒰ Other characters꒱ ˎˊ-
↳ Teddy is amazing, she has to be my favourite character. She is just the kind of best friend you would want to have, very in tune with your feelings, and knows you at your core. She is very observational too, just like me. I like what she says about Emmy and Luke’s relationship:

”Some love stories burn hot and fast, but you two are more low and slow,” she said. “It’s a strong and steady kind of love.”

🠚Wes is a sweetheart, utter golden retriever energy. It was so funny that he is standing there all confused about Luke kissing Emmy like “what in tarnation?” – priceless and precious!

FAV QUOTES
• Brooks had always been a ladies’ man. It had taken less than a minute of all his attention being on me to understand why. He was intoxicating.
• When it came to Emmy, I was playing with fire, but I would happily walk into the flames for her. And I’d have a smile on my face the whole damn time.
• “What do you need, sugar?” I replayed those words in my head over and over again. I’d never heard him talk like that—soft. In the moment, his words held me together just as much as his arms had.
• I put my knuckles under her chin so I could tilt her head up toward me and kiss her forehead. Emmy folded herself into my arms, and I held her for a minute. She fit in my arms like she was made for them. I’d like to think she was.
• Emmy Ryder might have been in like with me, but it was than that I knew I was falling in love with her.
• It was the small moments like those where I could see him clearly. Yes, he was absolutely a t-shirt mutilator, but he wasn’t arrogant, irresponsible, or careless. He was thoughtful and protective… The Luke I’d gotten to know since I’d come home was the kind of man I could fall in love with. I was starting to think he was the only man I could fall in love with.
• I didn’t really know how to be in love, but I knew I wanted to be with Emmy, in every way I could. I wanted the kitchen slow dances, nights out with shots, rides through the mountains, hot sex, afternoon naps, two-lane highways with the windows down. I wanted it all.
• “How do you know?” | “She asked for you.” Teddy shrugged. “Emmy never asks for anything.”
• I didn’t care that my family and nearly all of Meadowlark was watching. Luke wasn’t my secret. He was just mine.
• “How everyone didn’t know the man was hat over boots for you before the whole kissing incident is beyond me.”
• Emmy coming back to Meadowlark was the best thing that ever happened to me. When she came back home, I never expected to become her friend, let alone fall for her. We’d spent most of our lives in each other’s periphery, but now she was front and center.