When their respective best friends decided to get married, Riss Thorpe
and Ike Palmer decided to call a truce until after the wedding. Riss and
Ike had been bickering, arguing, and testing each other's limits ever
since they had met, two years before. They had found the truce slightly
easier than they had anticipated, and in retrospect, it was a fortuitous
decision when one of them has an accident.
Picking up RACKED AND
STACKED, book nine in the Blacktop Cowboys series, was a bold move on my part, one
which Riss would approve. I had heard good things about Lorelei
James, however the word "erotic" was brandished in every review I had
seen, and it made me wary. I expected a whole lot of sex held up by a
flimsy and possibly unoriginal story. And boy, was the joke on me! RACKED AND STACKED is a fantastic
story, with a heroine who is a true force of nature: she is indomitable,
assertive, owns her sexuality, doesn't make excuses for how she is, and
she is far from perfect. Riss is a truck driver, she has three older
brothers who are not the overbearing sort (hurrah!); Ike has three
younger sisters, he knows women, he knows how they think, but Riss is
not like the women he knows. Ike is very different from the average
romance male protagonist, and I wish we'd see such complex heroes
more often.
RACKED AND STACKED is a story
about enemies-to-lovers, opposites attract, and forced proximity, and
never have I read these tropes handled more masterfully! There are no
hurtful oral exchanges, no juvenile insults: the antagonistic banter had
me smiling, giggling, and even laughing. The forced proximity was, for
me, a dream come true; this is how this trope should serve a story. But
the best of all was the opposites attract; it served to move the story
forward and led to fantastic character development. Riss and Ike's
romance is as intricately conceived as the best thriller plots, every little
step serves a purpose; it was as if I were witnessing life unfold.
I loved that both Riss and Ike are both blue collars, he's a stock
contractor, and there was not a billionaire in sight! I fell head over heels
for Lorelei James' stellar storytelling; her prose is crisp and bright, the
dialogues feel so genuine that I know that I'll remember Riss' voice
forever, and the characters are masterpieces of complexity and realism.
RACKED AND STACKED is a
masterpiece of showing and not telling, and I am thrilled to bits to have
discovered the amazing Lorelei James!
Opposites don't just attract in the West--they
sizzle--and Wyoming has never been hotter than in the latest
sexy Blacktop Cowboys® novel.
Growing up with three older brothers, Larissa "Riss" Thorpe
defines the term tomboy--a moniker that never mattered to
her until she crossed paths with sexy cowboy player Ike
Palmer. Seeing him in action on the road, Riss can tell that
Ike prefers his women soft-spoken and feminine. And since
Riss is obviously not his type, it's unlikely that they'll
mix business and pleasure when they're in close quarters
together.
Former cattle broker Ike Palmer was ready for a new chapter
in his life as a stock contractor when he started working
with Riss, a sassy truck driver who gets under his skin at
every turn. But Riss is unlike any woman he's ever met and
her candor inflames him in the most unexpected ways.
After circumstances force a truce between them, Riss and Ike
will have to choose to maintain the stubbornness that keeps
them apart or take a chance on the fiery attraction that
could lead to something more...
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