REVIEW, Rough, Raw, and Ready

Torn between the love he has....and the love he’s always wanted.

    Prod dets

Rough, Raw, and Ready

Series: Rough Riders, book 5

Pub:  2009, Samhain publishing

Author: Lorelei James

Genre: western romance

Format: paperback (lar); 278pp w/ 31 chapters

Whose: Chassie, Trevor & Edgard

Age Range: adult                                             

            Synopsis

Chassie West Glanzer hasn’t been a stranger to drama and tragedy. A year of wedded bliss to sexy-as-sin cowboy Trevor Glanzer has brought her the happiness and contentment she never thought she’d find, and mellowed Trevor’s rodeo wanderlust. The Trevor’s old roping partner ambles up the driveway—and Chassie’s life changes drastically.

Trevor never expected to see Edgard Mancuso again, after it became clear he couldn’t be the man Edgard needed. Now Edgard is back from Brazil to sort out their tangles past, and Trevor is plagued with feelings he thought he’d buried over three years ago. Although Trevor is hat-over-bootheels in love with his sweet, feisty wife, the sense his life is missing a piece has always gnawed at him.

Chassie’s shock that Edgard and Trevor were once lovers turns to fear of losing her husband. Or worse, fear that Trevor will stay with her only out of a sense of duty. Yet as the three of them spend time together, the sins of the past blur and fade, leaving raw emotion—and unbridled passion.

Passion that could heal...or cause irreparable damage to their future.

Warning: this book contains unbelievably explicit sex, including multiple cowboy/cowgirl/cowboy ménage scenes, juicy, hot, male on male action, a bucketful of politically incorrect situations and true Western ideology.

            Thoughts

Though to look at this book isn’t all that big. but man...is it full.

Laughing and crying (‘cause I’m easy that way) and confused and understanding, this book is all about opening up—at least that’s what I got—to excepting what you always wanted.

Now, to confess, I got this book because of the three-way between two males. I need that shit for my own work...I’m telling you think because it’s the fifth book in the series and I have a feeling that maybe the characters of these books were important in a previous one (Long Hard Ride). I tell you this because it may mean a lot more if I had read the first one, but I’m really not a fan of the old west and few of them I love reading about.

This is one of those times (really, the only other cowboy shit I’ve loved has been written by Susan Krinard). I absolutely LOVED the writing style and the way this book flowed. I loved how she was able to mixed and mess all the characters minds and thoughts so that you ended up knowing what was going on when you really wished you new.

I liked the simple flow that made it easy to understand and not totally relevant of what I know of cowboy stuff (I know nothing, except maybe something from one of the Back to the Future moves—oh, wait, no I watch Wild Wild West, does that make me knowledgably?!?)

That being said, this book never came to a boring point, everything flowed. The emotions, the need, pulled you in and wrapped you up, making you forget the world around you, and loving that it was happening.

This is one of my big things when it comes to contemporary novels. I just get bored to the triles and trials and I feel that a writer (to please me) has to put in so much to keep that interest in it.

James did that for me. There wasn’t a moment that I could forget the story, that I wanted to leave the farm.

I loved the way life worked, the little tragedies that people have and that help your thinking. That helped them figure out what they really wanted and what they really needed and how best to deal with each point.

I’m not going to talk much about the actual context; the blurb does that well enough. It’s about two man who loved each other and a woman how opens her heart to that love.

I liked that everything seem real. that the people, the love, the commitment and the...uncertainly came across in a way that was so real it made you ache for Chassie with all your heart. Root for her. Quite simple fall in love with her while she tries to deal with two men who have to work a lot of shit out for themselves.

Really, she’s the one I ended up loving at the end of the book. Not the two hunky men that are more confused and stressed than anything. But the pint size woman with a mind of steal and a heart you can’t help but get trapped in.

I loved this book so much, despite its content, that I have a craving for another one. James just pulls off something that I didn’t care that much for in a way that has me wanting more. if only it’s from her mind!

Series

Long Hard Ride. Rode Hard, Put Up Wet. Cowgirl Up and Ride. Tied Up, and Ride. [tb]. Branded As Trouble. Shoulda Been A Cowboy. All Jacked Up. Raising Kane. Cowgils Don’t Cry. Slow Ride. Chasin’ Eight. Cowboy Casanova.

☼☼☼