Book Review: Curves and Cowboys by Kat Baxter (Windsor Securities #3)

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This book is one in a long-running series about several women and their romantic relationships with employees at a security firm, and this is my first book in the series, even though it is not actually the first in the entire series.

The female lead this time around is a British heiress who writes alien romance and has been feeling pressured by her family for a long time. 

The primary source of animosity towards her is that she is not really fazed by that popularity and isn’t looking to remain too long in their circles, and this is something they simply can’t reconcile with because of their station in life. 

The book is very much bite-sized, so we don’t really get into the dynamics of her relationship with her parents, but we do know it isn’t the best, and the story instead focuses on her friendship with her best friend and her budding romance with our male lead.

She meets him when she comes to America to console her best friend after her best friend has an awkward encounter with someone who was flirting with her, and this is when she meets our male lead, who is her friend’s colleague.

It is pretty much love at first sight for him, and even though she is interested in having a relationship with him, she doesn’t think too much about it because she worries that she might get her hopes up and then eventually be disappointed if he tells her that he’s only being friendly.

He then concocts a very elaborate plan to spend more time with her, and it is during that time together that they become aware of their feelings for each other, but he feels a little insecure because she is very much a fancy person and he feels his own inadequacies.

Just as I said, she herself acknowledges that she has feelings for the new lead, but she doesn’t act on it because, again, she thinks he is simply being friendly, and secondly, since she’s plus-size, even though the book doesn’t really delve into her insecurities, it’s obvious that she doesn’t really feel that she could be attractive to anyone.

They do end up having a relationship of sorts, but then she goes back to Britain, and after a while, and after some confusion, he goes over there to get her, and they have their happy ending.

One thing I noticed right off the bat is that for short books like this, I don’t usually expect a third-act breakup, but that’s what happened here, and I’m happy it was not drawn out.

Another reason why it worked in this book is that there needed to be something to really highlight the disparity in their stations, especially since it remained on the periphery for the longest time, and that separation after they had both acknowledged their feelings for each other was necessary to make the story feel more rounded.

Our female lead is as quirky as can be. Perhaps because this book is short, we don’t really get to see the stage where her quirkiness morphs into full-on idiocy, and I’m very happy I’ll get to remember her as this bubbly but reserved character instead of someone who simply bumbles around.

She’s also an heiress and a billionaire in her own right since her alien romance series is wildly popular, and I loved that because we got to see her as someone who is self-sufficient. 

I enjoyed the different scenarios I envisioned after reading that really showed the dichotomy between her real-life personality and her online persona.

I am frankly the last person who would ever advocate for a character being tortured, but it definitely helps to make a character more relatable when we see that the issues they face are things that mirror our own experiences. 

Our heroine in this book is a bundle of insecurities, and every single time she talked herself out of feeling, it felt very real, and I could understand and relate to her so well.

She is a plus-size person, and as someone who also falls into this category, romance and friendship are two concepts that reflect our struggles with our bodies, and I loved the way she handled everything that came her way in the book.

Another fantastic thing about this book was seeing the wide disconnect between British and American cultures explored. Trust me when I say you are going to laugh no matter what. 

There’s usually this running joke online, if you are a doom-scroller like me, and you’ve probably already seen the memes that both sides of the divide take at each other. This book, where a Texan cowboy falls in love with a British heiress, is everything.

Finally, this book did explore these themes, but it did so in a way that never felt heavy-handed or too much at any given point in time. 

We got an exposé on the dynamics of handling romantic relationships as a plus-size woman, the downside of having unsupportive parents, and the best way to have a romantic relationship with a person when you are plagued by your own insecurities.

I generally think that anyone is going to love this book, especially if you like plus-size romance between two characters with incredible chemistry. You are going to especially love this if you appreciate male protagonists who are essentially pookies.