Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy
Elsie Silver, Chip Gaines, and the politics of small town romance
Hello from California, where I’ve already managed to sneak in a visit to the mothership, the Ripped Bodice:
More on that in my October roundup. This week, since we’ve covered romantasy and hockey on our journey through BookTok’s favorite subgenres, we’re saying howdy to the small town cowboy romance.
The current queen of cowboy romance, both on BookTok and on the New York Times bestseller list, is Elsie Silver. Elsie has written three small town series about cowboys and the women who love them: Gold Rush Ranch, Chestnut Springs, and Rose Hill. All told, she has released 12 books, with the 13th to be released March 4, 2025.
Silver has been all over BookTok for the past year, with her Chestnut Springs series becoming a fan favorite. Returning to old faithful (Google Trends), we see that search interest in Elsie Silver began in October 2022, and it’s been exponential growth ever since.
Notably, Silver is Canadian, and Chestnut Springs is a fictional town in British Columbia. This could explain why, despite the fact that her books are filled with horses and ranches, the aesthetics depicted in the TikToks below don’t read as stereotypically western in the American sense - in fact, they barely even read as Southern as a Bama Rush girl to me. In fact, what they look like are hockey WAGs.
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Last week, I read Wild Eyes, Silver’s most recent novel. Released on September 3, 2024, it has already amassed an eye-popping 23,000 reviews on Amazon. It is #1 on Amazon in the category of Western and Frontier Romance eBooks.
Wild Eyes features Skylar, a pop star running from abusive management and a PR crisis, and Weston, a single father of two who trains horses and lives in the picturesque town of Rose Hill. In fact, of her 12 books, one third of those are about single dads, and her current series will include all MMCs who are single dads.
Weston rescues Skylar when she’s trying to take a selfie with a grizzly bear by the side of the road. She’s fleeing to Rose Hill to try to record an album on her own with a famous record producer who lives there and, through a series of unfortunate events, ends up living in Weston’s old bunkhouse during her time in the town.
Along the way, she befriends his charming and chaotic children, learns about horses, and strikes up a banter-filled friendship with West. West is a goofy, golden retriever of a man who means well but has often ended up in trouble. I enjoyed his immediate unflinching support of Skylar and her journey to self confidence, and would have enjoyed it even more if he hadn’t immediately reminded me of Chip Gaines.
In many of the cowboy romances I’ve read, MMCs are coded as the goofy nice guys. Compare this to the alpha billionaire heroes in edgy contemporary romances and it makes an interesting contrast.
Wild Eyes, along with Nobody Wants This, made me think about why it felt so refreshing to see a MMC who actually liked the FMC. Are there so many enemies to lovers romances on our shelves that we’re used to seeing men mistreat and undermine their love interests for half of a book? It’s something I’m still wrestling with and which I’m sure will come up in this newsletter over the next few months.
It’s definitely part of the appeal for readers. “I’m convinced all I need in my life is a cowboy who calls me “darlin” or “sweetheart” on a daily basis🌾🤍” says @whatlcreads.
Skylar is charmed by West and his hard work and his wholesome family life and his horses and the quirky yet supportive townsfolk of Rose Hill. She writes an album by herself but SPOILER ultimately decides to give up her career as a recording artist at the end of the book to live the quiet small town life.
I live in Austin, Texas, a place that can sometimes be a parody of its honky-tonkin’ self, so I am not unfamiliar with the romance of the west and the ill-advised urge to buy cowboy boots. But another thing I’m familiar with as a Texan is the depressing political reality of living in a state where you don’t have the right to bodily autonomy as a woman. Nearly all of the cowboy romances I’ve read exist in a fantasy world blissfully free from the realities of rural politics. Is that the fantasy that’s at play here - the fantasy of a world where you could move to a small town and avoid that kind of conflict? Do Canadian cowboys have better politics?
Silver’s books, and other cowboy romances are, in BookTok parlance, spicy. Lots of single men and women are having lots of sex. Is that where all of the single dads are coming from? I jest, but I’ve also never seen a TikTok review of one of these books mention politics. If you find one, please send it my way.
Contrast all of this with Colton Gentry’s Third Act, YA author Jeff Zentner’s first foray into writing for adults. It has many of the elements of a cowboy romance - a small town in the south, a country singer, a second-chance romance, a single parent (in this case a mom). But it is also explicitly political.
Colton Gentry is a country singer whose career is derailed forever when he advocates for gun control at one of his concerts. Unable to book any work, he returns home and stumbles into a new career working at a fine dining restaurant owned by his high school girlfriend. When I read an early copy last Thanksgiving, I found it to be sad and lovely, like much of Zentner’s previous writing. It also currently has 404 reviews on Amazon - significant, but nowhere near the numbers of a popular cowboy romance.
The fantasy of the cowboy romance is the fantasy of a simpler life, free from real world complications. See the TikTok below, which highlights something interesting. Maybe something appealing about a small town romance is the potential for a return to old fashioned courtship in the time of online dating and a desire for men to say what they want.
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There are, of course, other factors that have influenced the cowboy boom - the popularity of TV’s Yellowstone, the Taylor Swift renaissance, and it has to be asked:has this all been accelerated by the Glen Powell in Twisters of it all? Many cowboy romance rec videos are soundtracked with “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” from the Twisters soundtrack.
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Other Rodeo Queens
Let’s round up some more favorite writers for the BookTok cowgirls:
Lyla Sage writes the Rebel Blue Ranch series, which was optioned by Universal TV in March. With their distinctive pop art covers, her books stand out. Her novels have taglines like “She’s the city girl who refuses to be saddled with a man. He’s the cowboy who wants her anyway.”
Bailey Hannah’s Wells Ranch series, originally independently published, was just bought by a big five publisher.
Tarah DeWitt is a favorite of Elsie Silver’s who doesn’t quite write cowboy romance, but her cozy small town story about a grieving Michelin-star chef moving to a small town, Savor It, hits all of the right beats. He’s even the guardian to his orphaned niece.
Devney Perry has written dozens of popular books, including sports romances, but she also has a few Montana-set small town cowboy series, including Haven River Ranch and The Edens. Jasper Vale is a BookTok favorite (no real cowboys though). “We love to see a possessive, jealous, in denial of his feelings in a fake marriage type of man. We love to see it.” - @literaryalexandra
Paisley Hope - one of her cowboys is also a retired hockey player in Holding the Reins. Need I say more?
Elliott Rose: the cowboy in Chasing the Wild is also the FMC’s ex-boyfriend’s father.
Finally:
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I don’t even know what is happening here.
Imaginary Celebrity Book Club
It seems a little on the nose to pick Bella Hadid, considering she is living out a real life cowboy romance with her rodeo star boyfriend in Fort Worth. But isn’t it interesting that almost every week, there is a celebrity woman who is living the plot of a BookTok romance?
Instead: he’s already selling books by wearing tight white t-shirts into rainstorms, but Glen Powell would really shine with a book club full of dad books about the history of aviation. It would be authentic, he’s clearly passionate about it, having starred in numerous number of movies where he plays a pilot or astronaut and having produced a documentary about the Blue Angels. His movie Devotion was based on a 2015 military biography. He is also a single father (to a small dog). It would certainly help reach a demographic that is not primarily getting their book recommendations from TikTok (yet). Call me, Glen.
Next week: a BookTok payola scandal
I’m from British Columbia 🇨🇦 and I don’t know if that’s quite our rural aesthetic 😂 As for the politics of Canadian cowboys, we just recently had a very close provincial election and our more liberal party (New Democratic Party) barely eked out a win. The more right-wing Conservative Party swept most of the rural areas.
Amen to the real-life politics of small towns/rural communities. There's no safe way for an indie author to write that reality into a romance without losing readers/income (believe me. I've tried).