REVIEW: The Rodeo Queen by Marcella Bell

The Rodeo Queen by Marcella Bell finds Diablo Sosa participating in a reality TV rodeo competition called Closed Circuit. Reluctant to participate, he’s encouraged to do so by his old mentor, who helped turned his life around by teaching him about the rodeo. There he meets Sierra Quintanilla, the rodeo queen/host for the show. While it’s not appropriate for a rodeo queen to associate with rodeo participants, she finds it hard to stay away from Diablo. But when tragedy hits close to home for Diablo, will he stick around for the show or leave it all behind?

I had a hard time getting into this story. It was repeatedly mentioned that Closed Circuit was “the rodeo unlike any other”, and what was expected from rodeo queens. It felt like a good portion of the book was Sierra stating what she can’t do with rodeo contestants, only for her to turn around and do them with Diablo.

There wasn’t much to keep my interest in the story. There’s some drama between Julio and Dillion, two of the other contestants, but even that wasn’t enough to really keep my attention. I found myself repeatedly putting the book down to return to it later.

Another thing that also made it hard for me to read was that there are quite a few conversations in Spanish, and I don’t know much Spanish. When there were brief conversations, there was usually enough context afterwards that I could get the gist of what was being said, but at one point there’s page after page after page of a conversation, mostly in Spanish. And I say mostly, because one sentence started out in English and then switched to Spanish mid-sentence. Needless to say, I had to break out a translator to decipher what was going on. It was already a slow read for me, and this just slowed it down even further. I’m all for characters speaking their native tongue, but with this book, it just felt like too much work to try to translate everything when I was already struggling to get through it.

This is the second book in the Closed Circuit series, and while characters from the first book make a brief appearance in this one, it can be read as a standalone. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything by not having read the previous book.

I knew a little about the rodeo going in, but I learned more about the role a rodeo queen plays, and I enjoyed the actual competition aspects of the story. Unfortunately, the rest of the book just didn’t work for me.

Book Info:

Publication: December 27, 2022 | HQN Books | Closed Circuit #2

With more crowns to her name than hairs on her head, Sierra Quintanilla knows the rulebook inside out. And with Closed Circuit, the reality-TV-meets-rodeo-tour competition, back for a second season, she’s ready to play her part to perfection. But no one is actually perfect. And nothing is more dangerous to a rodeo queen than desire…

As a teenager, Diablo Sosa was sentenced by a judge to attend a Houston youth rodeo program. Now an attorney at law, Diablo spends his days seeking justice. He would never have returned to the arena but for his old mentor, so why does the pounding in his blood feel like a homecoming? Or perhaps that’s down to Sierra, the hostess, who shines brighter than the studio lights.

From Houston to New Orleans, from Miami to Las Vegas, Sierra and Diablo wrestle with a connection that could cost them everything—or else lead them right to where they’re meant to be…