Guest Review: Saddled and Spurred by Lorelei James

Tracy’s review of Saddled and Spurred (Blacktop Cowboys #2) by Lorelei James

Bran Turner’s new hired hand for his Wyoming ranch is feisty former rodeo queen, Harper Masterson. All she wants is to earn enough to leave this small town. But as Bran ropes her in, he could change her mind.

Harper Masterson is desperate for a job. She lives in Muddy Gap, Wyoming and there’s about 12 businesses total. She already works part time at the nail salon and the other business, well, some are unavailable to her permanently based on past events with her mom. Harper isn’t quite sure what to do. She just needs to work for the next three months until her sister, Bailey, graduates from high school and then she’ll move to wherever her sister decides to go to college.

Harper’s friend Celia helps out by making the arrangements for Harper to work as a ranch hand for rancher Bran Turner, except she doesn’t tell Bran that it’s Harper who will be working for him. To say that Bran isn’t happy about the situation when Harper shows up is an understatement, but he decides to give the former beauty pageant queen a chance and surprisingly, he’s not disappointed.

But working all day with Harper is making Bran crazy. He’s been attracted to her since she was younger and being with her is not helping him keep his mind off of her body. Eventually the two fall into a sexual relationship – but only in the off hours so there’s no hanky-panky on the job. This works out well for both but neither one of them are being truthful about their feelings for the other and when it’s time for the three months to end the shit hits the fan in both of their lives in a big way.

The characters:

I really liked Bran and we get to know him somewhat but I never felt like I was thoroughly getting to know him. Some issues were brought up – as in, how he felt that he wasn’t good enough for someone like Harper or his issues with not having gone to college – but they were never explored in more depth and I was sad that they weren’t. I think I would have liked to have gotten more into Bran and his life – besides the one he had on the ranch or with Harper. I did love how Bran didn’t take one look at Harper and write her off as unable to do the job as ranch hand. He willingly let her work the job to see if she could handle it and I loved his faith in her.

Harper – she was such a strong character but she was a mess. When her mother had taken off for parts unknown and left Harper to take care of her younger sister Harper had totally stepped up to the plate and had worked her tail off to provide for Bailey. But in doing that she had denied herself her dreams and had planned on continuing along that line indefinitely. She really was smart enough to have figured everything out without having to have the proverbial smack in the face, but she didn’t and that bothered me. I think it bothered me because she was so smart about everything else. I guess, though, that we always can see things on the outside better than we can see things in ourselves internally.

Now, that being said this was just a fun book. Bran and Harper’s sex life definitely never lacked in the sexy and incredibly hot categories (well, except for that once. Lol). The book had all of the wonderful trademark James writing about incredible cowboys, remarkable women and strong family ties and I will definitely be reading the next book in this series when it releases.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

The series:

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

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

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