Lucy's Chance (Red Rock Ranch #1) Review

Release date: April 15 2015

Publisher: Createspace

Number of Pages: 186

My rating: 3.5/5

I really enjoyed this book. It was a little bit choppy in some places, but it was definitely a really fun summer read.

Lucy gets summer job at Red Rock Ranch. She meets Casey, a handsome and kind cowboy. Unfortunately, Taylor Johnson, rich and talented, has her claws in him. When a wild horse comes out of nowhere, Lucy makes it her mission to whip him up into a ranch horse.

Lucy and Casey were pretty sweet characters. Both were hard workers and great people. Both are determined to save the black horse.

Unfortunately I had a bit of a problem with Taylor for most of the book. Taylor is a talented rider who is very competitive. She’s really possessive of Casey and is just cruel to Lucy for no reason. I really didn’t see the reasoning behind her behaviour in this book. I actually grew to like Taylor in the second book, but that’s another story. I wish that we were given a little more insight into Taylor a little earlier in the book. We do get to explore her character a little more later on in the book, but I would prefer to do this a little earlier on. In my experience, usually mean people have a reason for the way that they behave. Very rarely do you find someone who is truly cruel to others for no reason (and then there are chronically stupid self-centred people, but those people are a different story). Despite Taylor’s bad attitude, I found that I couldn’t really hate her. Joy does a good job of introducing a little depth in her later on, and her relationship with her horse Star is really lovely.

I really enjoyed the horse content in the book. There is definitely some jargon used in this book, so it might be a bit more challenging for non horsey people to read, but it’s definitely not impossible. Each horse had their own personality and Lucy’s relationship with the black horse was nice. There are definitely ups and downs but I think that it was rather realistic.

I loved the atmosphere of the ranch, but wish that there was a little more description about some of the guests (you can meet some very colourful people working with the public...). I can tell that Joy has spent time on ranches in real life.

The climax of the book was really exciting. I was glued to the page! I think that this part was nicely written and fun to read about. 

The ending of the book was a little bit abrupt and I did spot a few minor typos. I think that those things can be worked out with a little more editing.

All in all, I enjoyed Lucy’s Chance quite a lot. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good, middle grade horse book.

A copy was provided free of charge from the author in exchange for an honest review.