Ransom Canyon is the new Western series in town ready to sweep romance readers and Virgin River fans alike off their feet. Rocking a blend of cozy, small-town drama with a web of romantic tension, this new Netflix adaptation based on Jodi Thomas’ beloved series is a delightfully bingeable, Texas-set show for those who like horseback-riding hunks, but don’t need all the Yellowstone-esque violence.

Get our full, spoiler-free review of Ransom Canyon here. But take our word for it, if you’re an Elsie Silver or Lyla Sage fan, this is a watch designed with you in mind.

The show is led by a flannel-clad Josh Duhamel (Transformers) playing Staten Kirkland and a sundress-donning Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights) as Quinn O’Grady, whose tender and tension-filled chemistry strike all the right romance reader cords.

She Reads had the opportunity to sit down with the two stars to chat about Ransom Canyon, reading and their characters’ red flags.

She Reads: Ransom Canyon deals with grief, land battles and hard choices, but at its heart, it’s really a story about love. How do you feel love shapes each of your characters?

Josh Duhamel: That’s a really good question, actually.

I think for my character[…] I don’t think he has a very fond  idea of what love is because every time he does it, he gets his heart broken. Whether it’s his wife or his son, he’s very reluctant to go there. And I think that that’s part of the reason why he’s having such a hard time sort of navigating these feelings he has for Quinn.

Minka Kelly: I think it’s super complex. [Quinn’s] love for herself, love for this man she’s had a thing for her whole life and, you know, she’s learning how to come into her own power and maybe love herself a little bit more than she’s been loving everybody else her whole life.

SR: Westerns seem to be really having a moment in both TV and books. Why do you think everyone is so drawn to this small-town dynamic at the moment and what drew you to the project?

JD: You know, I don’t know exactly why. It’s always been a part of Americana, you know, this Western idea, it goes all the way back. But maybe it’s just this, this wanting of a simpler sort of life amidst a very complex  world, very high tech and complex world right now. Maybe that’s it. Yeah.

SR: Each of your characters has a lot going on emotionally. What would you say some of your characters’ red flags are and what are some of their green flags?

MK: Oh boy. I’d say maybe one of Quinn’s red flags are her sort of codependent tendencies to put everyone before herself  at the cost of herself and abandoning herself and her needs to take care of everyone else around her as opposed to, you know, knowing what her boundaries are.

SR: Yeah, but she has a lot of green flags too.

JD: Yeah, that’s kind of a green flag also.

MK: Well, you’d be surprised how red of a flag it is. Is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you don’t have boundaries and you don’t put yourself first, that’s how you build resentment and you have conflict is because now I’m mad at you for something you didn’t even say you would do for me, but I expected from you because I did all of this for you. Why aren’t you loving me the way I want you to love me?

JD: Ah, see I’m learning a lot today.

SR: Alright, what about you Josh? The red flags and green flags of Staten?

JD: I don’t know if there are any red flags of Staten. No, I think he’s got, he’s pretty much got it all figured out. (chuckles) I mean, clearly red flags are that he is too proud, too stubborn. He doesn’t say and do the right thing, his intentions are good, but doesn’t say or do  the thing that he should. So he gets in his way. I mean, I feel like there’s a lot of things this guy needs to work on, but I think at the core, he’s a guy you can trust. If he says he’s gonna do something, he’s gonna do it. And his intentions are good.

SR: Because we are a book outlet, I have to ask what is the best book you’ve read recently or what is your favorite book of all time?

MK: Favorite book of all time? (She is all of us.)

Josh? Well, he read the entire Ransom Canyon series of books. (Does this not make you love him even more?)

JD: That would be my favorite. There you go.  Honestly, I’m reading a book  called Sapiens. It’s not really a romance. [By Yuval Noah Harari] I just find it so fascinating how we’ve sort of evolved as human beings…  And how the hell did he do all that? How does he know all that? It’s amazing. So that’s a good one. Yeah, that’s a really good one.

MK: I love The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. That’s one that I kind of always go back to. That one kind of like really changed my life on this journey of evolving as a person.

JD: My wife could go on and on. She’s like an avid reader. She’s always reading. She reads like a book a week.

SR: Did you have a particular cowboy or cowgirl who you had in mind as you were shaping your characters? Do you have some favorite fictional ones that you were thinking of?

MK: Actually, no, I don’t. I think that’s what’s probably so great about this is it could be sort of any backdrop, but those stories are so relatable and not particular to any sort of genre other than the human experience. And when it comes to being in relationship with someone else or even yourself. And it just so happens this is the most, you know, beautiful  backdrop that we were so lucky to get to do this in.

JD: Gosh, there’s a lot. I’m a big Clint Eastwood fan, love Butch Casidy and the Sundance Kid. Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall was so dreamy.

SR: What elements of the story do you hope resonate with viewers the most? What do you hope they walk away with?

MK: I hope they enjoy it. I hope they see themselves in one of the many complex and beautiful and complicated and flawed characters. And I hope they feel good and escape for ten hours. I think we all just wanna feel good right now. And I think this  show really has the potential  to make you feel good.

JD: Yeah, it does feel like  a comfy old pair of jeans. It feels lived in and I think that there’s something cozy about that.

Ransom Canyon‘s now available to stream on Netflix!