Guest Review: Wrangled and Tangled by Lorelei James

Tracy’s review of Wrangled and Tangled (Blacktop Cowboys #3) by Lorelei James

Janie Fitzhugh and Abe Lawson have long been divorced and living apart. Now she’s back in town, a changed woman-making cattleman Abe want to wrangle an invitation to her bed…

To get his dream ranch, Renner Jackson has partnered with spoiled daddy’s girl Tierney Pratt. She thinks she can handle this cowboy, but Renner won’t make it easy. Little do they know they will be entangled in ways neither dreamed possible.

Abe and Janie got married very young and though they loved each other they had a serious communication problem. On top of that Abe was stuck in his ways and wanted to keep his ranch exactly how it had been when his parents ran it. Janie kind of felt like it wasn’t really her ranch or her house – that she was just a visitor there. Eventually Janie, instead of talking to Abe, left. They divorced and Janie left Wyoming. Though Abe never stopped loving Janie he went on his way and ultimately decided to make some changes in his life.

Janie is now back in Wyoming and working at the new resort, Split Rock. When Janie has a couple of accidents and they think it’s an old stalker of hers Abe immediately moves her into his house and in the end, into his bed. The couple have issues to work out but they discover that they still love each other and that they can through whatever issues come up in their lives.

Renner is the owner of Split Rock. Due to the economy he found that he needed financing and gets it from a large company in Chicago. That company is run by Gene Pratt whose daughter, Tierney, works for him. When Gene overlooks his daughter for an executive position even though she’s more qualified she tries to resign. Gene won’t let her so she invokes a clause in her contract that says she can take 6 months to act as an overseer at of the companies properties. Tierney chooses the Split Rock Ranch and Resort. Tierney is not exactly welcomed at the Split Rock and Renner almost goes out of his way to make her life miserable rather than trying to get to know her. Part of his antagonism is that despite the fact that he thinks she’s a spoiled little rich girl who was sent by Daddy he’s incredibly attracted to her.

Tierney and Renner don’t exactly work out their differences before they move into a sexual relationship but they soon find that the person they’re sleeping with wasn’t who they thought – on either side. Tierney is a 26 year old virgin who is trying to break away from her father’s rule and possibly strike out on her own. Renner is a man who likes to take care of those whom he loves as well as his business ventures. While the couple still has their issues it’s really Gene Pratt who ends up being the problem for both of them and their not sure how to work it out.

Wrangled and Tangled was a bit different from past Blacktop Cowboy stories in that James gave us two romances for the price of one. We got both Abe and Janie’s love story as well as Tierney and Renner’s. I do think that Renner and Tierney’s story took up more page time than Abe and Janie’s but it seemed that Abe and Janie had more to work out than the other couple. I was a bit disappointed in the fact that we didn’t get to see Abe and Janie working through their past difficulties on a more in depth level. They had some serious communication issues and while I felt they did deal with some of their problems I thought there were plenty more that needed attention. That being said I really did like them together. Janie was great at business but I felt she still had a ton of growing up to do. I think that Abe was a solid person to have by her side while she working toward that goal.

Tierney and Renner were great together in my opinion. While she really didn’t know what she was doing in the bedroom, at first, she learned quickly and since the pair couldn’t keep their hands off of each other they were intimate quite a lot during the book. Despite Tierney’s sexual inexperience she excelled at her job in the financial realm. She was good at what she did and had a great head on her shoulders. There was only a bit of angst between the couple once they became intimate and I really liked that about them – especially since we were getting so much of that from Abe and Janie.

In the end it was a good book. So far I’m really liking the Blacktop Cowboys series and plan to keep reading it. I would definitely recommend reading books 1 & 2 in this series before reading this one as you might be a bit confused by characters that are mentioned in this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

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

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