Untamed
Kathleen Lawless
Pocket, Sep 2005, $12.00
ISBN: 1416507515

Librarian Paris Sommer inherits her great-great grandmother's diary, that includes tantalizing insights into a brothel her ancestor owned in Forked Creek, Nevada. Unable to resist a look at her family tree, Paris visits the town, where she meets ruggedly handsome cowboy Mitchell Brand; both feel the heat emanating between them from that first contact.

Paris discovers a map coded in her grandmother's diary that speaks of treasures. She begins a search, but others also want the booty and will kill to obtain it. As Brand teaches her the art of lovemaking, he also tries to keep her safe, but concludes that as long as she remains in Forked Creek she lives in danger. Paris leaves, but wonders how she will live without the hunk who turned her into a woman with needs only he can satiate; he feels he has died the little death with the woman who can make him hard with a look going away.

UNTAMED is an erotic contemporary romance starring an innocent librarian and a classic womanizing cowboy, that reminded this reviewer of the Devil and Miss Jones. He teaches her the art of seduction, but she ropes him in with her siren's call, though both have lives they each acknowledge they should return to, but each knows how difficult moving on will prove. Though the support cast seems one dimensional, the growing relationship between the fully developed lead couple makes for a wonderful heated tale.

Harriet Klausner