photograph: PINTEREST

Elsie Silver, the woman you are. I’ve definitely binged a few TV series in my day (Suits, Love Is Blind, etc.) but Elsie Silver has turned me into a book-binger. This week, I’ve been devouring her Gold Rush Ranch series, which features Violet Eaton (the Eaton brother’s little sister, if you’ve read the Chestnut Springs books). Specifically, we’re covering A Photo Finish because it has my favorite trope: OnlyFans to Only FAN. That was stupid, but whatever… this is my blog, so I can do whatever I want!

Violet wanted to get away from her domineering brothers and overprotective father so she moved from Calgary, Canada to the small town of Ruby Creek. As a little girl, she’d always been around horses on her family’s ranch, so she started working as a low-level groomer under Vaughn Harding, the owner of Gold Rush Ranch. In Off to the Races, the first book in the Gold Rush Ranch series is where you get to see Billie Black, head trainer of the horses at the ranch, and Vaughn fall in love. That book was good, don’t get me wrong– but this one was better.

Cole Harding is Vaughn’s older, much more traumatized brother. Cole not only served in Iraq for 13 years, but he watched his father die in front of him on the very ranch he and his brother inherited. On top of that, he’s harboring a huge secret– he’s an amputee and wears a prosthetic on his left leg. Cole is incredibly ashamed of his “stub” as he calls it and fears if he tells people, they’ll pity him.

This is why when Cole logs into an online sex forum (similar to OnlyFans), he’s hoping to find an intimate connection with a woman who will never judge him for his leg. That’s when he stumbles across Violet’s nude body– and of course, she’s logged in under a false name: “Pretty_In_Purple.” I think Cole’s name is even funnier, though, because he somehow came up with the name “Golddigger 85.” He explains it in the book as being sentimental, but I just laugh every time his screen name pops up on my Kindle.

On this forum, they text back and forth for over a year with no sexual contact. No video chats or nudes, just platonic chatting. Except for the one night they decided to call and have phone sex. This is important because Cole caught a glimpse of Violet’s face. So when a year later, Violet is riding the star horse for Cole’s ranch, he rashly walks up to her after her win and whispers, “Hi, Pretty in Purple.”

Real sly, bud.

The setup for this novel was delicious. When Violet and Cole are forced to live together (for a reason I’ll let you find out for yourself), the sexual tension between them could be cut with a knife. They’re constantly tip-toeing around each other, worried about how the other feels– it makes for some amazing banter. 

On the “Enemies to Readers” Sex-o-Meter, this was a 3 out of 5 stars. There was enough smut to have me kicking my feet, but not too much that it overpowered the intimacy of their emotional connection.

As always with cowboy romances– save a horse, read Elsie Silver.

See you next read,

Charlotte