BRANDED – Colette Auclair
The Aspen Valley Series , Book 3
Pocket Star EBook
e-ISBN: 978-1-4767-4582-4
December 2014
Contemporary Romance

Present Day Aspen, Colorado

Cordy (Cordelia) Sims puts paid to one part of her life and is ready to start anew. She leaves family, friends and her ex-fiancé behind in the East and heads west to the ski resort town of Aspen. She's been hired to look over the Pinnacle Resort and come up with suggestions to make it better and also to find ways to bring guests to the area in the off season. On Monday she will hire on temporarily with the advertising agency to work with them on the Pinnacle account. That leaves the week end to finish her report.

Cordy is winding down her early morning run on Friday when she sees a man in a tux riding the ski-lift down the mountain. She sees him drop what looks like a martini shaker, and the man asks her in a familiar manner to pick it up for him and take it to the hotel bar. When she does later, she takes him for the hotel piano player and they begin a lively, slightly antagonistic dialogue. But they are both intrigued, and when Cordy calls her cousin from the ladies' room, Peyton urges her to cut loose and enjoy herself for a change…to go for it. Thinking she badly needs something to taker her mind off her recent troubles, Cordy assents to spending time with him provided he will abide by her rules. They are to exchange first names only, neither give nor ask for any personal information, and when the weekend is over, so is their time together. The man—whose name is Jack—agrees.

Wow! For someone as normally self controlled as Cordy, she is about to have a wild adventure. And Jack? He can't believe his luck in finding such a beautiful and interesting companion. Does either have any reluctance when their fling comes to an end? Maybe so, but a bargain is a bargain.

And then comes Cordy's Monday meeting her new employer, the Ajax Group ad agency headed by former major league pitcher Jack Cormier…her weekend fling! Right away, she's determined to act as if they'd never met, and Jack agrees to go along with her new rules. Hmm. Do they have any chance at all to forget all that happened between them? Did their really erotically satisfying weekend leave no feelings behind? Can Cordy get back to her usual cool, all business self? Can Jack, who's had his heart broken once, smother the temptations Cordy provokes?

BRANDED can be divided into two parts, the first is highly sensuous and explicit, while the second part cools down the physical heat, but ramps up the real personalities of the two. While in the first part, Jack could star in a woman's hottest fantasies, but after the weekend, he becomes a sensitive and understanding gentleman any woman could love. Whew! What a hero! Will the baggage each carries around hinder something real between them? Meanwhile, the business that brought Cordy to Colorado has her working with Jack, and they meet snags.

BRANDED is the third tale to take place in Aspen. The main characters from the earlier books, THROWN and JUMPED, are introduced and the three women become friends. They have their involvement with and love of horses in common, making for interesting reading in addition to the blooming relationships. I give a whole-hearted recommendation for this excellent trilogy.

Jane Bowers