Right Wrong Guy (Lia Riley)

Sometimes two wrongs can make a right...

Bad boy wrangler Archer Kane lives fast and loose. Words like responsibility and commitment send him running in the opposite direction. Until a wild Vegas weekend puts him on a collision course with Eden Bankcroft-Kew, a New York heiress running away from her blackmailing fiancé…the morning of her wedding.

Eden has never understood the big attraction to cowboys. Give her a guy in a tailored suit any day of the week. But now all she can think about is Mr. Rugged Handsome, six-feet of sinfully sexy country charm with a pair of green eyes that keeps her tossing and turning.

Archer might be the wrong guy for a woman like her, but she's not right in thinking he'll walk away without fighting for her heart. And maybe, just maybe, two wrongs can make a right.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review

Right Wrong Guy is an amusing but flawed romance about two people who are both reinventing themselves.

I really like Edie, the heroine. She suffers from a lack of confidence, particularly in her looks, that I can really relate to; like Edie, I was teased about my appearance growing up. She doesn’t let her self-doubt stop her from trying to make a new life for herself after she catches her fiance cheating on her; instead, she decides to do something she’s always dreamed about. I admire her for that – and for confronting some of her other fears as the book goes along.

I also liked Archer once he turns himself around – but I found the turnaround hard to believe, particularly given the suddenness of it. He takes one look at Edie (whom he calls “Freckles” – a word I associate with childhood taunts, mostly directed at me) and begins thinking long-term, when he’s always been a real player before? I couldn’t quite buy it, especially coming so soon after the first scene, in which he wakes up in bed with two women. In Vegas. The scene was so over-the-top and painted Archer in such a negative light (from my perspective) that I almost quit reading right then and there.

Once Archer does start to turn around, though, his protectiveness and caring toward Edie are rather sweet, and provide a sometimes amusing contrast to his obvious desire for her. It’s clearly more than just lust, though; he likes her, and she’s equally interested in him. There are overtones of insta-love on his part which sometimes made me roll my eyes, but the way he gets riled up when he realizes how people in her past treated her is really  heartwarming.

It’s as though there are two Archers: the careless, irresponsible, and callous bed-hopper of the first scene, and the protective, swept-off-his-feet, do-anything-for-her cowboy hero of much of the rest of the book — and there’s not enough time spent on how and why he changes from one to the other. It’s not the sort of personality change you expect to happen in the course of a few days. While I liked Archer 2.0, he really needed more character development over a longer time period for me to believe in his transformation.*

As for the other characters, Archer’s Grandma is a hoot, and I love her, prickly exterior and all.  I also like Archer’s brother Sawyer, and I’d like to read Annie and Sawyer’s book, which must overlap with this one. And I was really happy with how the situation with Marigold, Edie’s business rival, worked out. She needs her own book someday.

Right Wrong Guy is a bit steamier than most of the small-town romance series I read – closer to Bella Andre than RaeAnne Thayne or even Susan Mallery. I enjoyed seeing the emotional side of Edie and Archer’s relationship develop – watching Archer figuring out how to overcome his past and court Edie, for instance – and I would have liked to see more of that and a little less of the heated scenes. The tension was well-done and could have easily been kept going for longer.

Bottom line: I would have liked this book much more if the initial depiction of Archer hadn’t turned me off so much. As it was, it took me a long time to get past that issue, and I was never able to reconcile the two Archers in my mind. The remainder of the book was enjoyable, however.

*The book itself takes place over more than a few days, but Archer’s transformation seems to occur very quickly – really within the first 24 hours. After that, he’s just kind of figuring out how to live down his past and prove he’s not who he used to be.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• COYER Scavenger Hunt - Summer 2015

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