Sammy’s review of One Tough Cowboy by Lora Leigh & Veronica Chadwick
Contemporary Erotic Romance published by Macmillan  29 Jan 19

I was so excited to read this first book in a NEW series! Ha. This is not a new book or a new series. This book was previously released as Moving Violations (Law and Disorder, Book 1) through Ellora’s Cave. I figured this out right after reading the first sex scene. It read like a Lora Leigh book, yet it was also kinda dated. Which lead me to Google. It was when I Googled Veronica Chadwick that I came across a book I had read way back when. The reason I wasn’t sure was that these characters are Hunter and Samantha. When I found the original book, they were known as Jackson and Becca. Now there were rewrites to bring it into 2019, and while some things were changed, other things, like the unnecessary rape scene at the end, was not handled right and, man, did that piss me off. It read like rape fantasy 101. Not only was this book not new, but now I had the misfortune of reading a gratuitous rape that wasn’t even dealt with on the page. Add in some southern accents when the “new book” is supposed to take place in some small town in CALIFORNIA.   Fucking horrible.

Hunter Steele is dealing with the death of Dorethea Coulter, a close friend of his deceased uncle, who is also dead, along with the mayor’s wife, who was also having an affair with Hunter’s uncle. Did you get all that? Okay. Hunter knows these deaths are not on the up and up and he’s trying to figure out what the hell is going on in his town. He also can’t rely on two of his three deputies, since two of them were hired by the mayor and they are not shy in showing Hunter their true colors. While Hunter is dealing with Dottie’s death and the coroner determining that she accidentally took too much of her pain medication, Hunter is really calling bullshit, and he feels horrible for Samantha Ryder, the once little girl who followed him around; he was her protector from all the bad bullies in their small town. Samantha moved away about fifteen years ago and he remembers meeting up with her again when she was 17 and he was engaged to be married to someone else.

Samantha Ryder is back and trying to handle the death of her favorite aunt, and also trying to work through her guilt for not seeing her as much and going over their last phone conversation with Aunt Dottie wanting to visit Sam up in Detroit. Moving forward to the funeral, you have all the usual busy bodies in attendance, with their southern accents in the middle of some small town in California. Hunter makes his appearance at Dottie’s house and he and Sam reconnect. Sam wants to talk to Hunter about her aunt’s death, because she knows she didn’t die by taking pain meds that she refused to take when she had surgery. The Pesky Pixie and the Sheriff start meeting undercover but out in the open. Good thing for Samantha that she’s on leave with the Detroit PD, so Hunter can use her skills as a detective. When the mayor finds out she’s in town, he tells Hunter to make sure he hires her to work for them.

Samantha and Hunter take things from platonic to sex lickety split. The sex is about fifty pages too long with a thousand orgasms. Sam finds a small drive in her aunt’s safety deposit box and she needs a secure computer so they can see what’s on it. Thanks to Hunter’s friend, the Mercenary, he takes Sam to his friend’s cabin and uses his computer. It’s a grainy video of the mayor and someone neither recognize. By this point you know the mayor is bad, the two moron deputies as well, and, of course, there are more baddies in this small town that turn out to be human traffickers. Things are heating up and we find out that Sam’s ex-fiance is also a stalker and he’s involved in this too. Sam decides to take Hunter up on the job position, and her first day at work she is severely wounded by the baddies.

Hunter calls in some backup through other channels and brings Sam in, so they can stake out the bad guys. This is also when they think it’s a good idea to have five-hour sex. After the sex she wakes up and has to relieve herself, and that’s when the bad guys show up. Instead of holding their position, they decide to see what’s going on with no backup. Things go from bad to worse, even with the help from his mercenary friend (who will probably get his own book with his mysterious lady friend). Tom, the ex-fiance, has Hunter and the Rambo mercenary tied up and now he has Samantha tied spread eagled on the ground, thanks to the two crooked deputies. Tom waits for Hunter to come to so he can watch him rape Sam. He proceeds to go down on her all the while she is looking at Hunter and calling his name. While this is going on, the mystery woman is untying them and someone shoots Tom in the back of the head. That’s how that ends before you get the epilogue months later.

I hated this book with a passion of a million firey suns. First off, readers are not stupid. Don’t publish a book and not be upfront about things. I think this pissed me off most of all. The rape in this book was not needed. The southern accents didn’t match where they lived. If the authors did so much work in revising this book, they should have gone a little deeper and they should have told their readers the book was previously published. Not cool.

Grade:F

Summary:

LAW AND ORDER. 
For as long as Samantha can remember, Hunter—a man as strong as steel, with a heart of gold—has been her hero. It came as no surprise to Samantha when she found out that the ranch-hardened cowboy who always protected her from bullies went on to become the town’s sheriff. What does surprise her is how incredibly hot he still is. And how much she still wants him…

 

PRIDE AND PASSION

And, lo and behold, Hunter still has feelings for Samantha. The long-smoldering heat of their innocent flirtation has grown into a full-raging fire. But when tragedy strikes, and their small-town community is shattered, Hunter vows to do everything he can to keep his childhood sweetheart safe. But can Samantha trust that Hunter has her best interests at heart…and that, after all these years, his love is true?

No excerpt available.