10 best cowboy romance books, ranked

Rugged landscapes. Rugged men. Rugged women. What could be hotter? Brokeback Mountain was onto something. People love cowboys. People love kissing cowboys. People love watching cowboys kiss each other. Save a horse and ride a cowboy in your mind with these 10 best cowboy romance books, ranked.

10. Silver Lining

Silver Lining by Maggie Osborne is the story of Low Down. Yes, that’s her name. Could this book get any better? Low is a nurse in a desolate mountain town high up in the Rockies. She spends her days treating the poxy old coal miners who come west in search of fortune. Despite her gritty exterior, rugged as the miners she treats, she’s got a romantic’s heart. She eventually enters into a marriage of convenience with the rough-and-tumble Max McCord. It’s totally transactional, as the handsome Max is in love with another woman from his past. At least, that’s how it started. With how things are heating up with Max, Low Down will need to change her name to Low Down N. Dirty.

9. Wild Rain

Wild Rain by Beverly Jenkins is the post-Civil War story of a city-slicking reporter who decides that Wyoming rancher Colton Lee will be the perfect subject for his newspaper back east. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself enamored with Lee’s lasso-throwing, horse-breaking sister Spring. Trouble is, Spring has a checkered past that she’s still running from, and isn’t too keen on letting love complicate her already complicated life. But maybe, just maybe, she can find herself falling for this handsome man from a faraway land.

8. Dust Storm

Subtitled A Single Dad Cowboy Romance, Dust Storm by Maggie Gates is for anyone who dreams of a rugged older man. The city slicker Cassandra was forced to give up her cushy New York City apartment with her husband to save her job. Now she’s stuck on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere with a grumpy old cowboy and his kids. She ain’t trying to get roped into this kind of country life. But when the hot cowboy dad she’s staying with knows how to throw a lasso, that’s going to be hard to avoid.

7. Alive and Wells

Alive and Wells by Bailey Hannah centers around yet another city slicker, Cecily Kennedy, whose five-year plan did not involve moving into a ranch house in the west. To get away from her abusive ex, those plans had to change. Now she’s on the range, but it doesn’t feel like home. She’s working as a cook for the no-nonsense cowboy Austin Wells, and he doesn’t seem too keen on the way she does things. But is that frustration in his eyes … or passion? Maybe a little of both? Something tells me that Cecily is going to find out.

6. Rocky Mountain Angel

Do you want cowboy romance pulp? You’ve come to the right ranch, partner. Rocky Mountain Angel by Vivian Arend is the story of Gabe Coleman, a cherub-faced, rough-handed rancher struggling to make ends meet. Enter his old high school friend Allison, who offers to help him with the business. All he has to do in return is pretend to be her fiancé. It’s the perfect tradeoff … until the pair start putting the action in “transaction.” They escape the rigors of the day with the passions of the night, but how long until reality threatens to tear it all down?

5. Done and Dusted

Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage is about Clementine “Emmy” Ryder, a woman who had it all. She left her small town in Wyoming to go to college and make a career for herself riding horses. After an equestrian accident left her unable to get back in the saddle, she returned home to recover. She’s dying to leave the town in the dust until bad boy bar owner Luke Brooks catches her eye. They used to hate each other as kids, but now he’s all grown up and looking like a tall drink of water after a hot day in the sun. The trouble is, he’s her brother’s best friend, but a little opposition never stopped Emmy before.

4. Backwards to Oregon

With Backwards to Oregon, the mononymous author Jae explores an undiscovered frontier of the genre: the sapphic western. The story revolves around Luke Hamilton, a woman who lives in disguise as a cowboy, who is convinced she’ll never marry. Enter Nora Macauley, a woman whose three-year stint at a brothel caused her to become cynical and jaded towards love. As fate would have it, the pair end up together in a covered wagon on the way to Oregon. They must navigate thousands of miles of dangerous frontier, with only each other to depend on.

3. Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove is a Western classic. This Pulitzer Prize-winning tale centers around former Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call, who lead a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. The novel is an unflinching portrayal of the brutality of the Old West, but a romantic heart beats beneath it. The novel is full of complicated love stories, from grizzled old cowboys pining after a lost love to Call’s relationship with a woman who bears his child. This book isn’t going to tie up any romances in a neat little bow. Love in Lonesome Dove is more like a lasso knot. The tighter it holds you, the harder it hurts.

2. All the Pretty Horses

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy is NOT a traditional romance novel. If you’ve ever read his other infamous Western story, Blood Meridian, you’ll know just how brutal his work can get. All the Pretty Horses, the first in the Border Trilogy, is the story of John Grady Cole, a teenage ranch hand who leaves his Texas home to make his fortune in Mexico. While working on a ranch owned by a powerful Mexican family, he falls in love with the rancher’s daughter Alejandra. It doesn’t end well. The romance in this story comes in no small part from the words with which it’s told. Cormac McCarthy is one of the most beautiful and devastating English writers of all time, as this novel will, tragically, show you.

1. Brokeback Mountain

Did you expect anything less? Brokeback Mountain is the pinnacle of the cowboy romance story. The apex of the genre. Penned by Annie Proulx, this masterpiece tells the tale of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands thrown into each other’s lives while working on a ranch one summer. Beginning with one passionate night in an isolated tent, their romance spans decades. Though the pair are torn apart by marriages, children, and a society hostile to love like theirs, they just can’t quit each other. It’s a tough read. A brutal read. A necessary read. It’s beautiful, aching, and all too short. You’ll just have to read it again and again.