Guest Review: Corralled by Lorelei James

Posted July 27, 2010 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 4 Comments

Tracy’s review of Corralled (Blacktop Cowboys #1) by Lorelei James

Sports therapist Lainie Capshaw has been rehabilitating injured cowboys long enough to know that a charming western drawl combined with a fine physical form doesn’t mean you fall for the man.

So no one is more surprised than Lainie when she finds herself involved with not one, but two different men: Hank Lawson, a bullfighter, and Kyle Gilchrist, a bull rider. Lainie feels guilty about her two-timing, but it doesn’t keep her from doubling her fun-that is until Hank catches her with Kyle.

She’s shocked that Hank isn’t mad. But she’s more shocked to learn Hank and Kyle are hometown buddies. But when the men offer to share her-in every way-she knows that she’s going to have to choose the one man who can give her the ride of her life…

Hank and Kyle decide that neither one of the men want to give Lainie up when they discover that she’s seeing both of them. They decide to share her and ask her to hit the road with them for the Cowboy Christmas (a fast paced circuit of rodeos in the summer months). Lainie agrees and she’s more than ready to be double teamed.

Lainie feels guilty, kind of, that she’s seeing two different men, but they were on different rodeo circuits so she was able to keep them apart. She just about dies when she finds out that they will now be in the same circuit and they’ve been friends forever! Oh my. She has a few reservations about travelling with the men and exactly how this threesome thing will work but her boss is forcing a vacation on her so she takes a chance.

It’s not all easy, fun and smiles all the time while the three are traveling. The traveling alone is grueling. Kyle demands equal “alone” time with Lainie since Hank had his “alone” time with her when they visited his family’s ranch. Each man is trying to figure out how to outdo the other sexually and you could feel the tension that it was causing between the three of them. Besides the sex, Lainie gets to know the men better and she starts to see what she really wants out of her life, where her current road is taking her and she wonders if that’s the road she needs to be on. She had a lot of self-discovery in this book and it made for great reading

I found Lainie to act very self-assured, even though that was just a facade at times. Kyle’s attitude, while not much different than Hank’s, was definitely more competition minded. He truly cared about Lainie but I think a lot of his actions were based on winning her in the end – but then what would he do with her. Hank wanted to win as well and while he could be a bossy guy he seemed a tad unsure at times which was quite endearing. But Hank was sure that if he “won” Lainie he would keep her around for a darned long time. And of course it’s a Lorelei James book so you know whether the sex was 1 on 1 or 2 on 1 it was incredibly hot.

When I started Corralled I had the impression that this book was distinctly reminiscent of James’s first book in her Rough Riders series, Long Hard Ride, even though this was just a threesome and not a foursome: woman joining with rodeo cowboys on the road. But that’s really where the comparison ended. This book was very much different from LHR and I was very happy about that. James has started another great series about cowboys: fun, sexy characters and emotional highs and lows. I think it’s gonna be a good one.

Rating: 4 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place.

This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format.