In need of something to read that would spike up body temperature? You might want to consider Her Secret Ranger. The heat-o-meter is certainly hot on this one! Now, I don't generally read steamy book (most likely skimming the heated steamy moments) but even I couldn't pooh-pooh at the heap of sexy times - and believe me when I say plenty, I mean: PLENTY - on the pages. Credit to the author, whose engaging writing made the experience enjoyable for me!

The book is the second entry to The Men of At Ease Ranch. Honestly, I haven't read the previous book and -although there were are a couple of remarks pertinent to book #1 - it didn't disturb the fun of reading this. Donna Michaels writes a couple of delightful characters; a bit too perfect in appearance to my liking, perhaps (both had gorgeous face and bod), but of whom I could empathize.

So, the gist of the story was the stranger Beth had a relationship with turned not to much of a stranger anyway. Brick was her big brother's best friend cum Army Ranger teammate. Knowing her brother's brotherhood ethic code of don't mess with one's sisters while falling for one of said brotherhood member, what's a girl got to do? Keeping both men from finding out the truth, that's what Beth did.

Well, the keeping the truth part didn't particularly sit well with me. But I get where the heroine came from. So expect a bit of cat and mouse hide and seek on the story. With the bulk of the scenes the heated tango between Beth and Brick I mentioned earlier.

I wish the getting to know part between the MCs was slightly more than sexually as shown here. I also wouldn't say no to some additional brother/sister moments to back up that hint of closeness Beth and Cord had. As it is, Her Secret Ranger is quite an amusing, humorous, and steamy read of lust turned to love cowboy romance.


Advanced copy of this book is kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Okay first of all why won't anyone dare me to kiss a cowboy if i could find one half as good as Brick i would do it.I really enjoyed this book in a sucker for Military/brothers best friend and cowboys so i was in heaven with this one it was a great read and very well written i would recommend it.Its the second book in the series and can be read on its own but read the first one its great too.

This is the second story in the At-Ease ranch series, and although it is book number two, it can be read as a standalone. I have not read the first book (yet), but that did not change my enjoyment of this at all. Some minor plot lines from the first book were spoiled, but again, not enough to make me regret reading them out of order.

Brick and Beth are two incredibly likable characters. Even though Beth keeps her true identity a secret from Brick, she does it for reasons that make sense to her at the time. I didn't agree with her choices, but I understood them. Granted, I have no clue how she thought that going to At-Ease with Brick before telling him who she was could even be in the same realm as a good idea, but it almost worked.

Although Cord's protectiveness was a bit over-dramatic, it suited the purpose of this book, and led to Beth's best moments in the book. I also wonder if his extreme reactions to “breaking the buddy code” will be explained in his own book, but I'm not going spoil anything buy making assumptions here.

This was a quick but fun read with really great chemistry. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a light read with a whole lot of sexiness.

I requested and was granted an ARC of this book by NetGalley. I wrote this review because I enjoyed the book.

Her Secret Ranger is the second delightful romance in The Men of At Ease Ranch series written by author Donna Michaels. It's sweet, funny, and sexy. Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled/Lovestruck Publishing for the advance copy. Love this series.

Her Secret Ranger is the second book in this series by Donna Michaels. I enjoyed this story although the characters left me conflicted at times. However the story was well written and came together in the end.

Beth and Brick hook up at a bar, hook up again, then meet a third time through an amazing series of coincidences. Or is it a coincidence?

The sole issue in this book is that Beth is the sister of Brick's Ranger buddy. Yes, that's it. As a reader, it was frustrating to have such a ridiculous problem.

I'm not sure I would choose to read another in this series unless there is some real meat to the story.

Two and a half stars. I'm afraid this novel tried to be too many things to please too many people and ended up being an unholy mish-mash that, in my opinion, lost its identity.

Elizabeth Brannigan is an assistant events planner whose boss is a control freak who takes credit for all her work and blames her when things go wrong. Her older brother Cord and his former Ranger buddies run some kind of veterans refuge slash ranch called At-Ease in the small town of Joyful. They also have a construction business on the side. Some of this may have been explained in the first book.

Cord has always refused to let his baby sister, Lizzie, or his family meet any of his ranger buddies, even now that they have left active duty, and has always referred to them by their (frankly ridiculous) nicknames. The entire group are suffering the after-effects of a mission gone wrong (I think).

Beth, as she prefers to be known, is so under her older brother's thumb and his controlling ways that she has barely dated. Even when he was deployed overseas she didn't date because she didn't want him to worry about the sort of guys she was seeing when he wasn't around to protect her! And yet, apparently she had hot monkey sex with a sexy cowboy she met at a club and knew nothing but his name.

A month later she sees the same guy and, as a dare from her best friend, who doesn't realise that this is the hot one night stand, she kisses him in a bar. The hot guy goes by the frankly ridiculous name of Brick (and that's not a nickname). Brick (and I'm sorry but after a while I read this as "prick") and Beth have both obsessed about that one night stand and so they start a relationship. Until Beth, Brick was a player, never brought a woman back to the ranch, never took a woman to his room, never slept in a bed with a woman, never spent the night. His ranger nickname was (originally enough) Romeo. At this point I feel compelled to say that his brother (the hero of the first book apparently) is called Stone (I kid you not, Brick and Stone - words fail me).

Of course, Brick is not only one of Cord's ranger buddies but also Cord's best friend. Despite guessing from his posture and attitude that Brick is ex-military, Beth doesn't realise/suspect that he knows her brother, even though he tells her he works on a ranch, until he takes her to the ranch and she realises it is the one where her brother lives. Of course they guys have a code - never mess with a team mate's sister (WTF?) and so Beth KNOWS that the burgeoning love affair will be terminated if either Cord or Brick finds out.

Now, reading the blurb I kind of knew what to expect and I was expecting this to be a read by numbers romance but there were just too many things going on, this was both a sweet romance and an attempt at a sexy novel - so we got LOTS of sex, but not much erotica. Volume but not much heat. A cowboy romance, a one night stand romance, a special ops romance, a bad boy converted romance, a setting up your own business ...

I think this could have done with less tropes and more real feelings. I felt that Donna Michaels was just running through a checklist of situations with little consideration for continuity or plot, I didn't feel engaged with either Beth or Brick.

I liked the first book. This one not so much. The supposed heroine Beth, was truly a selfish person, that bugged the hell out of me. There were times that it felt like we were in high school, instead of her being an adult. The minute she knew that Cord and Brick were best friends, she should have come clean. She should not have put Jovy and Leo in a difficult position, and those two should have been loyal to the Rangers. That was the decent thing to do. Yes, Cord was a over protected brother, but he did it out of love, and supported her, buy sending his checks, and was there for her. She should have given more respect. And I really don't understand how Brick could forgive her so quickly, she was a liar, manipulatIive person. If she truly loved, she would have told him.. I gave this a three, because of the supporting cast, was great to read about them. And now we get Cord's story.. I truly hope the reason he is so messed up wasn't due to I infidelity.

This book was okay. I didn't love it but I did not hate it either. It is definitely a hot book with lotsa sex scenes. It really starts out as a sexual relationship between Beth and Brick until they start finding out more about the other.

It did have its fun moments like when Beth's bestie challenges her to kiss the next single cowboy and she does and it is Brick. I also liked the angle of Brick working with her brother and him calling her Lizzie while Brick calls her Beth.

What distanced me from the story was part of the plot. For one Beth does not live in the city where the story takes place. She is in town helping her friend plan her wedding. So she is staying in a hotel. The other thing I did not like is that Brick is very temporary too. He is planning on moving on to a job in Vegas. To me both of that made it a story I did not want to get invested in.

I also found it really weird how distant Beth was from her brother. She didn't know any of his Seal friends, never met them. They didn't even know her name or even saw a picture of her. And she had never visited her brothers ranch or home. It just was very weird. I understood it was for plot purposes but they were supposedly close.

The writing was pretty good and HOT, I just felt distanced from enjoying the story by these factors in the story.

A quick read story with the usual Donna Ranger’s heroes: men who cherish their women and proclaim their love for them, in private and in public (this time, in front of hardened ex-Rangers).
As much as I like the dimpled hero and the struggling heroine, and their chemistry, and meeting the men of The At Ease Ranch, that buddy code thing to not put a move in a buddy’s sister is not convincing.
It’s hard to see grown people argue with the heroine’s bloodline or a code of loyalty in these conditions – it’s puerile and even a bit ridiculous. But, of course, common sense prevails.

good addition to the series. I liked it.

Chandler: This is the episode of Three's Company where there's some kind of misunderstanding.

Phoebe: Then I've already seen this one.

I'm sorry to say that this secretly-in-lust-with-my-brother's-comrade-in-arms forbidden romance did not work for me. Beth and Brick had fantastic chemistry together in bed; but whenever they were out of it, the story just dragged.

I get that military guys, and guys in general, can be protective about their little sisters, but Beth's brother Cord took it way too far. Then Beth continued the immaturity by not giving Brick her real name and going to ridiculous lengths to keep Brick and Cord from finding out. This really reminded me of Three's Company only without the laughs. And my goodness Beth, Brick and Cord all took the cake in how sorry they felt for themselves. So much wallowing and finger-pointing.

I do love a good falling for the brother's best friend/partner/military buddy romance and the author clearly has a way with Southern and steamy, but this was not a good mix for me. 2.5 stars

This is a fun, sexy read in The Men of At Ease Ranch series. It's book two, but is a stand alone novel.

Beth is an event planner that is in town planning her best friend's wedding and a few other events. While there, she meets Brick - a very hot guy she had a one night stand (two?) with. When she sees him again, they are both stunned, but immediately pick back up again.

She has no idea what his last name is or the name of his ranch. Her brother also lives on a ranch that he has kept private from his family. Before long, Beth figures out that they're both part of the same ranch.

This is a fun story that is very predicable, however the way the story is told is fun and engaging. Fans of the genre will enjoy this book and it is worth adding to your TBR list.

I so love this series and the hot Rangers-Cowboys in each book. I suggest that you read, In a Ranger's Arms book 1 of the series, before reading this book. Brick and Stone are brothers and a lot of what took place in book 1 is mentioned in book 2. As a matter of fact this book pretty much picks right up where the other ends.
Both Brick and Beth are so happy. We know that the proverbial shoe is going to drop, we're just not sure when. Every chapter we see them getting closer, and think is this going to be it. So when it actually happened, I was like WTH.

This book is fantastic! The end when she goes back to the ranch to share her side of everything and she walks out of the house, I just felt my heart breaking with her. I just wanted Brick to follow her and scoop her up in his arm and tell her he loves her. I was nearly in tears as she was talking and laying her heart out on the table. This was a great story and I just loved the writing and the characters! The story just pulls you in and then you are also carrying the burden of the secret with Beth and you just want so desperately for her to say something but it builds up and up and the tension is just killing me in the end of this book. I am a huge fan of this author and can't wait to read more!!! Great job, well written and just plain awesome!!!