Whiskey Wild
by Ali Parker and Jessica Mills
My review:
“Whiskey Wild” is a wonderfully entertaining story about two people who are pulled outside their comfort zones and into one another’s arms. During the process they learn a lot about themselves, and about one another.
Among the eight adult children of the MacAllen family in Whiskey River, there is one set of twins – Elijah and Evan. Although they look alike, the twins couldn’t be more different. Elijah loves the family ranch, and although he dates occasionally, he’s extremely respectful of women, and he always believes in doing the right thing by people. In contrast, Evan hates working on the ranch, is constantly flitting from one female conquest to the next and seems to constantly be in trouble with everybody. When Elijah reluctantly agrees to pretend to be his twin at a job interview, he has no idea that meeting prospective boss Lilah Clarke is going to forever change his life. Lilah is intensely focused on taking her career (and her life) to the next level by successfully heading up a new branch location for her corporate employer. She lives her life by a set of strict, self-imposed rules. When she hires the charming cowboy who unexpectedly applies for a sales job, she doesn’t realize how many of her rules are going to be incinerated. And when Elijah gets the job he interviewed for as Evan, he can’t bear to think of the beautiful Lilah working with and being seduced by his womanizing brother, so he makes a huge decision:
“ “I’m taking the job,” he said out loud with confidence. As soon as he said it, he knew it was the right decision. It wasn’t one Evan was going to like, but his brother had done his fair share of shit to piss Elijah off, so why not return the favor just this once? ”
There are times at which the interactions between Elijah and Lilah are comical, and at other times they’re stressful. At different moments in the book you may want to alternately shake each of the main characters and yell at them to get out of the way of their own happiness. But fear not, everything comes together in a seriously lovely way. I thought the author did a terrific job creating the world in which these characters live, and giving us a wide array of secondary characters whose stories I really want to know. All of Elijah’s siblings and Lilah’s best friend are intriguing, so I’m sincerely hoping this book is the first of what will be a long series.