"Rounding Up Love"

Tina Leonard continues her latest series Cowboys By The Dozen with LAREDO'S SASSY SWEETHEART. This second installment was in my opinion a much more entertaining read than the first book.

Katy Goodnight of The Lonely Hearts Salon is looking for a hero. In her opinion she is simply trying to repay the kindness that her boss Delilah has shown her, and isn't looking for a personal hero. When Laredo Jefferson of Union Junction shows up she ropes him into helping Ms. Delilah by riding the salon's bull in an upcoming rodeo. While she expects that Laredo might fall off the bull the fall that they both take is totally unexpected by Katy and Laredo.

Katy sees Laredo as studly, yet feels that she is better known as frigid. A feeling driven home to her when her ex- fiancee was found right before the wedding with her best friend in a compromising position. It's going to take not only all of Laredo's charms, but Katy's friends' assistance in convincing Katy she is anything but frigid.

Laredo is not only worrying about his growing attraction to the virginal Katy, but his lack of experience in bull riding. While he is trying to figure out Bloodthirsty Black, the bull he's agreed to ride. Laredo also has to worry about The Never Lonely Cut-N-Gurls girls trying to sabotage not only his ride, but his friendship with Katy.

Ms. Leonard has written in Laredo a man of character, who while protesting that he is not ready for a committed relationship, shows by his actions that perhaps he is. She has written in Katy a virgin who believes in her heart that she's frigid, but who's not afraid of taking matters into her own hands, and finding out for sure one way or the other.

The problem that I had encountered in the first book with too many characters who I felt were not fully fleshed out was not present in this book. Laredo, Katy, and the secondary characters they surrounded themselves with were well written, and as a reader I could easily imagine them. I truly enjoyed this second installment of Cowboys By The Dozen, and look forward to more.

Reviewed by Sandi Shilhanek
Posted August 18, 2003

Summary

Laredo Jefferson was eight seconds from shaking the dust of Union Junction, Texas, from his boots. Eight seconds from discovering the Something Big he was destined to do. He couldn't reckon how he'd promised those eight seconds to sweet filly Katy Goodnight, but he sure as shootin' knew why. He wanted to be her hero. And that meant riding the beast Bloodthirsty Black.

Laredo was a lover, not a bull rider. Still, he craved a challenge—and so, it seemed, did Katy. For this gun- shy Lonely Hearts gal handpicked him to unsaddle her of her virginity. Suddenly, where Katy was concerned, eight seconds could never be enough...