Caffeinated Reviewer

Sophia Rose is here with a review of The Wild Card by Carolyn Brown. Grab a cuppa at the Tumbleweed Diner and find out why Sophia recommends you grab a copy of The Wild Card.

When Lady Luck deals her a roadside diner in small-town Texas, a professional poker player discovers home may be the best win of all in this heartfelt romance by New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown.

Professional poker player Carla Wilson’s luck runs dry in Tucson, leaving her with nothing but an SUV running on fumes and a deed to the Tumbleweed Bus Stop and Diner in small-town Texas. Her plan to sell the café and move on seems simple enough—until she meets the motherly cook who rules the kitchen with an iron skillet and the sunny waitress who treats her like a sister.

Then there’s Jackson Armstrong. The ex-military heir of a wealthy oil family has green eyes that make Carla forget her cards and a smile that suggests he’s playing for keeps. With a pair of matchmaking senior citizens and the café’s morning regulars cheering from the sidelines, Carla’s wandering soul begins to feel at home.

Now she’s discovering everything she never knew she needed—true friendship, a place to belong, and a love worth going all in for. Maybe Lady Luck knew exactly what she was doing from the start.

Sophia Rose’s Review

When a woman pro gambler loses all her stake save the title for a diner in West Texas, she has no choice left except taking on the Tumbleweed Diner if she wants rebuild her stake and get back in the game.  Carolyn Brown tells a heartfelt tale of a handful of lonesome women hurt by their past finding their home at the Tumbleweed.

The Wild Card opens with Carla losing her big money stake at a backroom poker game in Tuscon, AZ.  Other than ten dollars and a crumpled up deed to a diner put in the pot earlier, she’s got nothing left in the world.  With not just a little fear, bitterness, and a whole lot of exhaustion, she points her car east to West Texas and that diner that hopefully will not only make enough to live on, but rebuild her stake before she sells it.

She’s not in the Tumbleweed Diner a day when Rosalie the cook and Scarlett the waitress convince her that the diner deserves an owner who isn’t a gambler only stopping in once a month to bleed it dry and put nothing into it.  Carla knows little about running a diner so she wisely lets Rosalie manager her and she works as a much needed second waitress especially when the bus stop crowds roll in.  Mathilda, the woman who originally owned the diner saw this dusty, desert spot on the highway as a haven for women who need to get a new start in their life and heal from the past.  Carla can read people and sees that both these women have pasts that they aren’t willing to share unless she proves she’s a stayer and not a tumbleweed like Mathilda’s nephew who lost the diner in a poker game.

Carla has no plans to stick around past the six months it will take to build her stake.  She’s only known the nomad life of a gambler and only feels alive when in a game, but Rosie’s strict religious rules, Scarlett’s friendliness, AdaLou and Nancy at the nearby trailer park as well as the handsome, sexy Jackson located in the area for a long-term oil drilling job all make her tentatively start to put down roots.

She never considered her pro gambling as an addiction since it had been a way of life since she was fourteen and went on the road with Frank after her mom died.  Each day at the Tumbleweed loosens the hold her old life has on her.  And, as she grows closer to the women she gets to learn each of their pasts and opens up to share her own.  Retired from the military and from a wealthy Texas family, Jackson turns out to be a man with the patience and care to be into Carla and let her slowly work through what it is to be in her first real relationship and trust that he’s a very different man from all the others she has known and disappointed her in the past.  She has a choice to make whether she will go back to the only world she has every known or take a chance on a new life and trust in love.

The Wild Card addresses so many elements from gambling to abused women, from loss and grief to abandonment.  There is so much depth in this story.  There is a romance, but that takes second place to Carla and these other women who have come to this isolated place, licking their wounds and needing a new start.  It was heartwarming and low-key dramatic.  The feisty old ladies, AdaLou and Nancy along with Rosie, and the young ones like Scarlett and Carla, later Tressa who have a lovely multi-generational friendship are the heart of the story.

All in all, this was another brilliant gem by Carolyn Brown and I recommend it for those who want to coze up with a story full of country charm and heart.

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*kindleunlimited 🎧

About Carolyn Brown

Author Carolyn BrownNew York Times and USA Today bestselling author Carolyn Brown was born in Texas and raised in southern Oklahoma. These days she and her husband make their home in Davis, Oklahoma, a small town of less than three thousand people where everyone knows everyone, knows what they are doing and with whom, and read the weekly newspaper to see who got caught. A plaque hangs on her office wall that says I know the voices are not real but they have such great ideas. That is her motto and muse as she goes through the days with quirky characters in her head, telling their stories, one by one, and loving her job. She has been married almost half a century to a retired English teacher that she calls Mr. B and he does not read her books before they are published because she cannot afford a divorce. They have three grown children.—and enough grandchildren to keep them busy and young. When Carolyn is not writing she likes to sit in the back yard and watch the two tom cats protect the yard from all kinds of wicked varmints like crickets, other cats, spiders and blue jays.

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About Sophia Rose

Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, and gardening. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and Chocolate.

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About Kimberly

Kimberly is a coffee loving book addict who reads and listens to fictional stories in all genres. Whovian, Ravenclaw, Howler and proud Nonna. She owns and manages Caffeinated PR. The coffee is always on and she is ready to chat. BlueSky | Facebook | Instagram

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