Eight Seconds to Forever

Eight Seconds to Forever is a bold, saucy and deeply romantic American rodeo novel set against the spectacular world of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association National Finals circuit. When Cole Hardin, a methodical, proud, two-time world champion bull rider from Lubbock, Texas, sees barrel racer Cassidy Monroe come out of the Fort Worth arena on a midnight-black horse with eleven thousand people still on their feet, he knows something has shifted. He just isn't going to admit it for five days, two arenas, and one very deliberate taco from the wrong food truck. Cassidy Monroe is from a different Texas entirely, old money Celina, Monroe Ranch quarter horses, a daddy with the best breeding programme in north Texas, and she is the most direct, most prepared, most formidable competitor Cole has ever shared a circuit with. She catches his eye at Fort Worth and she knows it and she is absolutely going to make him work for it. What follows is a love story that burns from the arena dirt to a corner table at the Dallas Stockyards, from a horse stall in Bakersfield to a steakhouse in Tulsa, from the Thomas and Mack Center on Night Ten to a sapphire ring in a limestone house outside Fredericksburg. But the road from Fort Worth to forever is not without its costs, a serious injury in Denver on the most dangerous bull on the professional circuit, a long winter of recovery protocol and front-porch chairs and the specific hard work of two strong people learning what they are to each other when the arena lights go off. Spanning seven circuit seasons, a Texas ranch built from the ground up, and a love that grows from the eight seconds at a time of two world-class competitors into the full, permanent, extraordinary life of two people who were always going to find each other, Eight Seconds to Forever is a celebration of the rodeo world, the Texas spirit, and the kind of love that knows exactly what it's worth and refuses to settle for anything less.