A dance with destiny at Three Rivers Ranch between the sexy cowboy owner and the woman he hires to clean the cabins…who ends up stealing his heart.
Heidi Duffin's life is finally coming together: she has just one year left of her Bachelor's degree in Baking and Pastry Arts, four job applications out, and a summer full of possibilities. But when her sister convinces her to attend the first summer dance in small town Three Rivers, everything changes when she meets Frank Ackerman.
Frank has been dragged to the dance by his cowboys, and he doesn’t feel it’s a mistake when he meets Heidi. He introduces her to a world of cowboys and country living as he follows up with a job offer after the dance.
Heidi begins to clean the cowboy cabins at Three Rivers Ranch, and the chemistry between her and Frank is off the charts hot as he captivates her every thought.
As the summer goes by and they work together and get to know each other, Heidi's culinary skills bring the cowboys of Three Rivers Ranch closer together, creating the family environment that Frank has longed for since the death of his mother.
But their love for each other and their faith is tested when the siren's call of Heidi's dream bakery becomes louder. Will she return to school to fulfill her dreams or follow her heart and stay in Three Rivers with Frank? Can their faith in God and each other guide them to the sweetest of happy endings?
★ USA TODAY BESTSELLER, AMAZON BESTSELLING AUTHOR, and KINDLE ALL STAR! ★
Liz Isaacson writes inspirational cowboy romances. Her Three Rivers Ranch Romance series has multiple #1 bestsellers in half a dozen categories. She loves all things to do with contemporary cowboys, and will write romance in Texas, Montana, Vermont, Wyoming, and anywhere else she can find horses and mountains. Find out more at lizisaacson.com. Join her fandom by texting COWBOY to 801-618-2114 for exclusive sales and freebies.
This was a good read. Heidi is town for the summer before she goes back to finish school. She meets Frank here. He ends up turning her world upside down. Luckily everything works out for them and they get their happy ending.
This book was my first introduction to Liz Isaacson's sweet western romances and I'm hooked! It was really fun to read a story set back just a couple decades ago when there were still rotary telephones. It made for an interesting courtship when Heidi and Frank were getting to know each other. I loved Heidi's character. She was a bit flighty and unsure of the next steps to take and it made it more believable for Frank to sweep her off her feet. The setting was well-written and it was fun to daydream about what it might be like to live on a working ranch. For Heidi, baking for lots of cowboys turns out to be quite the job and it sets off a chain of events that will change her life. This is a fun, sweet read and although it is book 8 in the series, I read it first.
"The First Lady of Three Rivers Ranch" is the eighth novel in this series and is a wonderful story of home time goes backward and we read about the love story that began everything! Frank and Heidi have a story that stands strong through the ages, and I am so happy that Ms. Isaacson decided to go back and provide us with this wonderful tale.
I love Liz Isaacson, her novels are truly wonderful! It is hard to find an author who can distinguish between a Christian Romance Novel and a Contemporary Romance Novel, but Ms. Isaacson does it and she does it well! I highly recommend every novel that I have read, and I hope that every novel I plan to read in the future is of the same quality!
I would just like to say that there is over 10 books in this series, and I am not normally a fan of series that run this long (unless they really hold your attention); however, Mrs. Isaacson grabs your attention with the multiple characters throughout the many novels and manages to keep them all tied together without having to repeat herself a multitude of times throughout each story. Wonderful job, if you enjoy one, you will enjoy all of them.
This novella doesn't live up to the cover. I came for the horses and I didn't find a horse until 90%. Then all we see is a grey horse with a bad name getting taught a very basic join-up. This has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the tale. The word horse or horses does occur at intervals earlier, but we don't see any or hear any names, although the two dogs are forever getting patted.
So Heidi fancies Frank at a dance. Heidi has the stupid habit of saying she is going to school, when she is in her mid twenties and is training to be a pastry chef. We don't hear how she got the funding; is she saddled with a loan? Heidi commendably dreams of having her own bakery, but their ranching countryside probably wouldn't support it so she'd have to go to a larger town. Frank however has inherited a rundown family ranch and asks Heidi to help design a new kitchen. Wouldn't a busy little woman be handy to feed the workers and do his washing? We get baking or praying every few pages, but no horses.
Ladies: if you (or parents) have paid to train for a qualification, get that qualification and get as good a result as you can. It will stand to you all your life. You don't know what the future will bring. I get annoyed when men expect women to drop their education and work just to be a wife. Thus have men ever made women dependent on them and thus have religions kept women barefoot and pregnant. Suppose this lady's husband drops dead with a big debt; she could give baking classes or get top-class work, provided she has that qualification.
Some readers will enjoy this book more than I did. I downloaded an e-copy when the author made it available. This is an unbiased review.
I am so glad to see Frank get his story. Frank was the oldest and the only one that really wanted the ranch. His dad wanted to move into town . Frank tried the dating game and did not like it. So he stayed away from gatherings and the woman in town. One night he decided to go to the dance in town and a woman bumped into him. He knew from the moment they met Heidi was special. Heidi had always wanted to own her own bakery so she started school to learn to be the best. While home over the summer her sister convinced her to go to a dance with her. Little did she know her life would change and she would have to rely on her faith to get it through it
4.52 1,192 ratings111 reviews Read how it all started at Three Rivers Ranch in this bonus prequel novel that features Frank Ackerman and Heidi Duffin.
Heidi Duffin has been dreaming about opening her own bakery since she was thirteen years old. She scrimped and saved for years to afford baking and pastry school in San Francisco. And now she only has one year left before she's a certified pastry chef. She's home for the summer when she goes to Three Rivers with her sister--and meets Frank Ackerman.
Frank's father has recently retired, and he's taken over the largest cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle. A horseman through and through, he's also nearing thirty-one and looking for someone to bring love and joy to a homestead that's been dominated by men for a decade.
Since the death of his mother, Frank doesn't feel like Three Rivers Ranch is a home. But when he convinces Heidi to come clean the cowboy cabins, she changes all that. With her culinary skills, she brings the cowboys together in ways Frank can only imagine. She builds what he's always wanted for the ranch--a family.
But the siren's call of a bakery is still loud in Heidi's ears, even if she's also seeing a future with Frank. Can she rely on her faith in ways she's never had to before or will their relationship end when summer does?
So, I'll preface this review with the fact that I'm not Christian and generally avoid Christian romances because of it; however, I somehow managed to buy this one and figured I'd give it a chance. So at first it was okay. A little slow and uneventful. I'm reminded as things go that often Christian romances have a crisis of faith and I can see the train wreck of that looming as I headed in to the second half of the book. I'm not opposed to that as a device, but as the only conflict in a book, it's a little weak. So then it boils down to **spoiler but not really since you can't really spoil this overly obvious plot** Heidi not being able to choose between her dream of a bakery and her love for Frank. She wants God to tell her what to do. But here's the thing: God would want her to pick what made her happiest, or even better, the option that could potentially let her have both. That shouldn't even be a question and yet she agonizes and hurts Frank in the process. If she really loved him, it wouldn't be a question. And since she questioned, I think she was wrong for Frank and should have just stuck with the bakery. I spent the last part of the book just feeling bad for Frank and with no sympathy for Heidi.
A bit too sweet for my taste, and unrealistic. The book is set in the late 1980ies - so a woman fights and scrimps and saves to get an education as a pastry chef, then, a couple of months before she is finished, she actually contemplates to let all this go down the drain just because she falls in love? I do believe in love at first sight, but I also believe in partnerships and compromises, and that does not mean the latter being heavy on the female side. The characters in this book were rather weak, I think, and considering the time frame this story is set in, I do not think that the events developing are realistic, in that a "working girl" was still something unusual? Nope! It would have been a nice story - the plot, city girl meets cowboy, their goals in life are quite opposite initially - but the way it was told just made me angry. I am aware this is a very personal opinion, and I do not want to offend. This is just not my kind of story.
*I received this audiobook in exchange for my honest review*
I loved Frank and Heidi’s story! It takes place in the 1980’s and the occasional mention of Heidi’s clothes and the fact that everyone had to communicate with wall-phones and letters was a blast from the past!
This is probably my favorite of the books. I’m not sure why, but it was kind of magical. Heidi brought the whole ranch together with her cooking and that made them a family.
Her relationship with her sister is also a sweet touch to the book. I like that both Frank and Heidi rely on prayer to see them through hard times, but also answers as to the path they should take.
Narration: 4.5
Ms Doughty does an excellent job, as always. I do have a hard time telling the difference between her cowboy-accented voice and her non-cowboy-accented voice. But really, she has a wonderful voice and I love listening to her narrate!
*poor, **ok, ***good, ****very good, *****something special
Heidi has wanted to go to culinary school and open her own bakery since she was young. Now she has only one year left and she meets Frank and falls in love. At the end of summer she has hard time leaving for school but she knows that her faith and their love will get her through. She goes home for his birthday and finally tells him that she loves him when she realizes how much the words mean to him, not just her actions. She tells him of an opportunity that has come up for her and wants to talk to him about it but he gets angry and breaks up with her. She goes back to school but they are both miserable. Will she take the new opportunity that has come up? What happens when she comes home for the holidays? Will Frank want to see her and does he still love her? Will she go back to school?
This is an outstanding clean Christian novel. The ranch is large and beautiful with a large home. Heidi got a job on the ranch to clean the small cabins that the cowboys live in. Frank, is the owner of the 'The Three Rivers Ranch' He is young, single and nice.looking, sometimes a little shy. He runs the ranch.
The novel was clean, well written, enjoyable, and entertaining. I loved the novel, the characters came alive with personalities. This was a fast, paced, easy to read. I had an audible which made the characters and the plot came together. Thank you Liz, for all the work, talent, time and research you shared with us. This is a series of 14 books, I will be looking for this author. This book can be a stand-alone book, no cliff-hangers recommend this book to everyone.
I’ve been meaning to read this series for months and it just kept getting pushed off until I just decided to force it! I knew that there were two entry points to this series, but I’ve always been one for chronological order, so I knew I had to start with this one, even if it was written later. I was not disappointed. I loved the characters and the feel of being back just a tad in time. I’m super pumped to see the connections in the series. I started my journey with Isaacson with reading the Seven Sons series, which spins off from this one. I do wish I had read this series first, but if it hadn’t been for the other, I may never have discovered Isaacson. All this to say that I love this author and these Christian cowboys finding love and forever.
Frank is the new owner of the Three Rivers Ranch since his dad retired. Frank is ready to settle down but has never found the right woman. When he convinces Heidi Duffin to come and clean the cowboy's cabins at Three Rivers Ranch, he thinks she might just be the woman he has been looking for. She is only going to be in Three Rivers for a few weeks and then she is heading back to culinary school in San Francisco. Heidi loves Frank but will Heidi give up her dream to become a pastry chef and own her own cafe'? Is her love for Frank enough to dream of something else in her life?
I listened to this book as an audiobook and enjoyed the narration very much. It is a sweet, quick read with a happy ending.
I am enjoying this series thoroughly. I enjoyed this one as much as the others. Although I didn't see as many of the characters from the other books as we normally have seen. I also would have liked to see a little more to the ending. I have gotten where I can almost anticipate that I am nearing the end since I have now read so many in this series. However I did like the relationship between Frank and Heidi as well as the relationship between Heidi and her sister. Its nice when your best friend is also your sibling. I also like how the author describes the communications the characters have as they receive answers to their prayers.
The Three Rivers Ranch series has been a favorite of mine. This story was right on par with the others I have read. Frank and Heidi meet at a dance. While studying to be a pastry chef with one school year left to complete her education, Heidi dreams of owning her own bakery one day. Frank is the owner of the Three Rivers Ranch. He is ready to settle down but the women typically only see his money and ranch without seeing him. Heidi is a breath of fresh air. She is looking for a summer job and he hires her. Frank falls for Heidi and they become close. Will he be able to convince her to stay with him at the ranch?
Frank wants to make the ranch a family place again, he takes over running the ranch soon. Can he find a wife? He goes to town for a dance something he doesn't normally do. A cow hands girlfriend comes and brings her sister. Heidi feels out of place and then dumps punch down the shirt of the most remarkable man she's every seen. Romance and decisions. She is in school becoming a chef. Does she return to Three Rivers can Frank capture her heart?
The attraction between these two is undeniable, but Heidi has a plan and it doesn't include Frank. At the end of the summer, Heidi must decide between her career or her heart. I love the way Heidi changes the ranch over the summer to an actual home for the ranch hands. Frank realizes that Heidi is what he needs to make this ranch into his dream. I also love the way Heidi and Frank interact with each other.
I loved reading Liz Isaacson's books. I love the heart warming romance stories that she writes about. Frank has put up a lot from Heidi and has let her go to fallow her dream. Little did she know that love always comes first, she had to struggle to find that out and put Frank though so much misery, before the truth domed on her, that she would also be miserable, in the path that she was taking.
Hiedi is looking for a job to help pay for her culinary school. Frank has inherited his family farm. They meet at a summer dance. Frank offers her a job cleaning at the ranch. Heidi turns the job into a mission for the ranch by inviting ranch hands to have pastry then supper until it is almost like a family. When she has to return to school it is with mixed feelings. Frank has promised to release her and follow through with much pain. He is thrilled when she returns for Christmas time to stay.
Heidi Duffin is nearly finished with pastry school, and takes a summer job for Frank Ackerman, the new owner of Three Rivers Ranch since his father retired. At the end of the summer she leaves to finish school and starts a long distance relationship with Frank. Heidi must decide whether the bakery she wants is better than a life with Frank. The plot includes making life decisions and trusting in God.
I love reading these books. I love the characters, the ranch, the horses, the cowboys, and the family dynamics. I enjoy seeing the situations that crop up in the relationships and how they're resolved. I love the happy endings. I loved reading about Frank and Heidi and the decisions they made and the consequences of those decisions. Now, onto the next book in the series.
It's so detailed that it felt like I was reading a movie script not a novel, the author filled it with what everyone is doing and how they’re doing it. The religious part of this story was well tamed until the end of it, it wasn’t good or convincing. In fact, the whole ending was very bad and doesn’t sit well with the heroine’s character.
I have been loving all oof the books in this buuch of series that run together, had to stop myself and leave a small review before went to the next book. Wonderful and intriguing and catching myself being right there with the people in the book, this all started with the LAST CHANCE RANCH.. Now on to thenext BOOK. HAPPY READING...
Sweet Christian Romance. Loved finally getting Frank and Heidi's story. They were so perfect for each other. Love the Christian aspect and getting a lesson with the story. My only negative is the ending. Seemed abrupt and not very romantic. Listened to the audiobook and loved Becky Doughty. She brings the Three rivers characters to life.
The First Lady of Three Rivers Ranch is a sweet love story about a cook and a cowboy. This is a clean Christian romance with good people. There seemed to be an easier solution to the central dilemma to me, but I suppose that would have made for a short story. This is part of a series of lovely cowboy romances.
The narrator of the audiobook does a good job with these books.
Of course, this was a really fun book to read, as my name was one of the main characters! :) Spyri was the first, and really only author until now where my name was a main character in a book! :) I found myself on the same roller coaster ride as Heidi in this book, and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series!
This story just goes to show that when opportunity knocks, dreams may just be fulfilled. Filled with love and faith, this story will have you smiling and hoping Heidi realizes what is in front of her ...... the man of her dreams ~
What a lovely intro to the three rivers ranch - great characters balancing multiple life dreams and choices. I can't wait to see what the rest of the series looks like! The characters demonstrate the power of words....spoken and unspoken.
I love the Three Rivers stories and this one goes back to the beginning. I love the characters and seeing the ranch grow and change. I plan to read them all. Thanks to the author.
Realizing A Bigger Dream Then You Have For Yourself
Sometimes we have this dream and we want let anything get in our way but sometimes God has a bigger dream for us if we just let go and let the Lord lead the watch read this story of how the amazing begin.