Eight Second Ride by Anne Jolin Review
4 Smooches
Synopsis
Owen Daniels lives his life eight seconds at a time. The thrill of anticipation that comes with sitting on twelve hundred pounds of untamed power is unparalleled. The adrenaline rush that floods his system when the chute opens is one of life’s most unique and natural highs.
Ride eight seconds bareback on a bucking bronco—that’s his life.
When Owen’s stock horse, Remington’s Lady, is injured midway through the rodeo circuit, he trailers her back home to Willow Bay, Alberta, to remain in the care of the local vet, Ray Brookes.
Months later, with a truck bed full of buckles, Owen comes home to collect his Lady from the man he trusted to help her recover. Only Ray happens to be short for Rayne, and Rayne happens to be a woman.
And this woman wants nothing to do with a cowboy fresh off the circuit. As far as she’s concerned, he can take his buckles, boots, and spurs right back on out of her life.
Will Rayne keep them from holding on to their eight-second ride? Or will love buck out of the chute in time for a perfect score?
Review
‘Every kiss we shared before was rivaled by this kiss, because with this kiss, he owned me.’
Eight Second Ride is book 2 in the Willow Bay Stables series by Anne Jolin and features Owen, the rodeo riding cowboy brother of London from the first book, and Ray the sexy local vet who has a history with cowboys and does not date them. I actually loved this story. Everything about it hit good notes for me. Owen is sweet and yet strong and alpha. He is relentless in his pursuit of Ray and she puts up a great fight. She doesn’t make anything easy for the cowboy who has women falling at his feet. Ray’s story is emotional and hard and when it all comes out you fully understand her hesitation. These two together made me smile and I loved their chemistry and banter.
“Fallin’ in love with you has been the best ride of my life, darlin'”
Eight Second Ride had 5 star potential for my but there were a few things that had me pulling it down a bit. Like most Anne Jolin books I wish it was longer, this is just to say that I think her stories are great and would love more than I get from them. At under two hundred pages it falls on the very short side for a novel for me. The “cowboy” lingo in the book was a bit over the top for me personally. I loved how he talked but think it could have been toned down and still got the same feel across. Lastly for as much chemistry and tension that Owen and Ray have the book fell in the fade to black area for me and while I do not mind FTB books I believe the first book in the series was definitely not FTB and so I was not expecting that from this story. Still none of the points overly distracted to the story which I actually liked better that the first book overall. Lovers of sexy cowboys and strong female leads should pick this one up.
~miranda
