Review: Saddled and Spurred by Lorelei James

Saddled and Spurred
Book 2 of the Blacktop Cowboys Series

Author:  Lorelei James
Publisher:  NAL Publishing
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
ISBN:  9780451232243
Release date:  3/1/11
More info at:  http://www.loreleijames.com/BCSeries.php

Received book from publisher to review.

Cattleman Bran Turner is left shorthanded during busy calving season when a bull tramples his hired hand. Rural Wyoming isn’t exactly a hotbed of qualified candidates, and the only applicant for the position is the pampered town beauty, Harper Masterson. The curvy cowgirl gets under Bran’s skin at every turn, but with no other options, he reluctantly hires her.

When sexual sparks ignite, down-on-her-luck Harper enjoys convincing Bran that not only is she capable of pulling calves, feeding live-stock, and handling backbreaking ranch chores, but she doesn’t mind getting down and dirty, either. Harper also discovers the hotbodied cowboy isn’t all work and no horseplay…and he’s got more than a few tricks up his sleeve. Bran will learn quickly that Harper is no country mouse—and that she might just have what it takes to stick around for the long haul.
(synopsis taken from author's site)

After losing one of the many jobs that she has to support herself and her younger sister,  Harper Masterson feels as if things cannot get any worse than what they are.  Living in a small town with few jobs, she just needs something to until her little sister graduates from High School.  After she does, her plans are to move out of the town that has never felt like home.  Her mother cause lot's of trouble before she finally left and people look at Harper thinking she is going to be just like her.  But she's not.  She wants to make sure her sister graduates and she wants to make something of her life.  But she feels like she can't do anything in the town that they live in.  Thanks to her best friend, she now has a new job being a ranch hand at Bran Turner's farm.  When Harper shows up for her first day of work and Bran realizes who was hired, he's not to happy, but decides to hire Harper and he realizes that there is much more than the beauty queen that he is used to.

The thing I liked about this story is that Bran and Harper really got to know one another before anything happened between them.  We get the chance to see how they saw each other and realized how they each had more to them that the other person didn't know about.  There were sweet moments where Bran would watch Harper feeding the animals on the farm that were so adorable.  Harper realized how hard Bran worked and how much pride he had in his work.  All of these moments led to them falling for each other and we are rewarded with some hot love scenes. 

I'm giving Saddled and Spurred 3.5 Bells!

Saddled and Spurred was very enjoyable and had many feel good scenes in it.  The story was real as if the same situations could happen to anyone.  That made the characters much more relateable and the story believeable.