And a Smile - Coke's Clown

Roughstock #2 & 4

by B.A. Tortuga

Bullfighter Coke is having a rough time in the Roughstock universe. When his dear friend Sam Bell is injured at the finals of the bullriding season, he takes that, and his injuries, pretty hard. His very own clown, Dillon, is determined to take care of Coke, which is tough when Coke is usually the one to care for everyone. Can Dillon get Coke to take a little downtime and recover?

Dillon and Coke appear in And a Season One.

Genres: M M Romance, Romance, Contemporary, Westerns

106 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 16, 2011

About the author

Texan to the bone and an unrepentant Daddy's Girl, BA Tortuga spends her days with her hounds and her beloved wife, texting her grandbabies, and eating Mexican food. When she's not doing that, she's writing. She spends her days off watching rodeo, knitting, and surfing Pinterest in the name of research. Following their own personal joys, BA and Julia heard the call of the high desert and they now live in the New Mexico mountains. BA's personal saviors include her wife, her best friends, and coffee. Lots of coffee. Really good coffee.

Having written everything from fist-fighting rednecks to cowboy daddies to werewolves, BA does her damnedest to tell the stories of her heart, which is committed to giving everyone their happily ever after. With books ranging from hard-hitting BDSM, to fiery passions, to the most traditional of love stories, BA refuses to be pigeon-holed by anyone but the voices in her head.

Reviews

[Marlobo ♥ epilogues · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suspect that this story hides high doses of blue pills off pages.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series started on a high, but I’ve become increasingly frustrated with it. I really struggled with this installment and I’ve tried to figure out why.

Coke and Dillon are characters that have re-occurred since the start of the series, but they’ve never been properly described to readers. And oddly enough, they aren’t described terribly well here. If I hadn’t grown up in a redneck town where the rodeo was the social event of the year, I still wouldn’t have a clue about the nature of either Coke or Dillon’s jobs. After reading the story, I’m still not sure what either man looks like.

This seems to be following the path of most good series. By the eighth (or fourth - there seem to be two versions of this book and the series has a parallel universe where books are divided by two…) book, the first half of this story involves catching up with as many couples from past books as possible. The deluge of names and updates was off-putting for me. So was the idea of a romance with an already established couple at its core. By the time there was drama between Coke and Dillon, the story was nearly over.

And finally, I really struggled with the narrative voice of this story. I’m pretty sure that Steinbeck made up the rules for the Cowboy Western when he penned “Of Mice and Men”. While his characters speak with regional dialects and simple vocabularies, the narrative voice is always eloquent, his language beautiful. Here, Coke narrates most of the story but the narrative voice is as simple as the characters’ words. While I know that Coke and Dillon are more complex characters than their vocabulary allows, the unceasing cowboy slang makes for a disjointed read and leaves the impression of a relationship between two men with serious special needs. It just doesn’t work very well for me.

That said, Coke’s backstory is interesting and I enjoyed watching a long-term couple weather life’s storms. I didn’t find this as sexy or as emotionally moving as previous books in the series. It is fun to catch up with characters from earlier books, but I would have like to have read Coke and Dillon’s story on its own. So - I’m falling out of love with this series.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review for Inked Rainbow Reads.

[CB · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very entertaining series. Lots of sex and sexy cowboys. I saw BA Tortuga's youtube video on the Roughstock men and the visuals were a great addition!

This is another book featuring 2 important secondary characters, Coke and Dillon. You could almost argue they are the main characters of Roughstock.

Just good cowboy fun!

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars