He wears suits and ties. He’ll one day inherit a fortune. He has a law degree. He shines his shoes, for God’s sake. What is she doing attracted to a guy like him? But she is. She so is.
She drives air boats on the bayou, drinks and cusses, and gives city boys in suits a hard time just for fun. Why can’t he get her out of his mind? But he can’t. He definitely can’t.
A weekend trip to Savannah for a fancy-schmancy party with his highfalutin family is the surefire way to prove that they have nothing in common but intense chemistry. And to maybe scratch this I’ve-never-wanted-anyone-like-I-want-you itch once or twice. Or five times.
But it takes only about twenty-four hours for the bayou girl and the city boy to figure out that they don’t really know much at all–about each other, or about themselves. And figuring all of this out is going to be downright crazy.
| Title: | Crazy Rich Cajuns |
| Author: | Erin Nicholas |
| Series: | Boys of the Bayou (Book 4) |
| Pages: | 260 |
| Genre(s): | Contemporary |
| Trope(s): | Small Town Romance Opposites Attract |
| Point of View: | |
| Location: | Autre, Louisiana, USA |
| HEA: | ✔️ |
| Release Date: | 30th September, 2019 |
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Didn’t quite tick all the boxes for me
I have read most of the Boys of the Bayou series of which this is the fourth book, and Kennedy and Bennett as a couple have been teased almost since the very start. It probably does stand alone, but as part of a series full of colourful characters and intertwined scenarios, you might be confused if you haven’t read at least one of the previous books in the series.
As I mentioned, Bennett and Kennedy have been dancing around each other in previous books. They very much had an antagonistic relationship – a sort of teasing love-to-hate-you kind of thing. I didn’t really ever feel a super chemistry (in previous books) between the pair and this book really just throws you into the story so I still wasn’t really feeling them as a pair to begin with.
I really liked the idea of Bennett – he’s the kind of hero that’s totally my jam. He’s a rich guy and can come across as a little bit stuffy – especially in comparison to those laid-back Louisiana folk. I love the idea of a buttoned up guy getting a little ruffled with a girl who’s not his norm. And he wears glasses. Swoon! But despite all this, I didn’t love him as much as I wanted to. It’s hard to put my finger on why – but there it is. And that’s despite him being a dirty talker. I LOVED that about him. It probably hit me just as hard as it hit Kennedy.
“…has Ms Nicholas’s trademark humour, heat and obvious love of small-town family and life.”
Kennedy herself wasn’t really my cup of tea as far as a heroine goes either. She was, for me, deliberately difficult and provocative at times and I often wanted to tell her to stand down and calm down. That attitude 24/7 must be exhausting! I was slightly worried we were going down the really obvious route of the backwater girl going to the hoity toity society party and embarrassing herself and others with her provincial ways! Luckily we didn’t go that way and I did get to like Kennedy a wee bit better as the story progressed. But ultimately, I still did feel she was a little bitty selfish. There was just something about her that I wasn’t loving. Don’t get me wrong – I was still rooting for our couple and I did like them – I just didn’t love them – as individuals or together.
Unlike the other books in the series (or the ones that I’ve read anyway), this story also takes us out of the Bayou for a large chunk of time. It therefore had a different feel to it than the other books. Again, not bad – just different.
As I mentioned, Bennett has a dirty mouth on him which I very much appreciated. As such, the sex scenes were delicious – especially since there’s something of a build up before we get to the very good stuff.
This wasn’t my favourite of the Boys of the Bayou books but it’s very readable and still has Ms Nicholas’s trademark humour, heat and obvious love of small-town family and life. 3 stars from me but still recommended if you’ve read others in the series; just maybe don’t start with this one.
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Erin Nicholas has been writing romances almost as long as she’s been reading them. To date, she’s written over thirty sexy, contemporary novels that have been described as “toe-curling,” “enchanting,” “steamy,” and “fun.” She adores reluctant heroes, imperfect heroines, and happily ever afters.
Erin lives in the Midwest, where she enjoys spending time with her husband (who only wants to read the sex scenes in her books), her kids (who will never read the sex scenes in her books), and her family and friends (who claim to be “shocked” by the sex scenes in her books).
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Excerpt:
“Good morning, Miss Landry.”
“I’ve been on hold for fifteen freaking minutes, Mr. Baxter.”
Bennett grinned. She’d been on hold for four minutes. He knew because he’d been watching the time on his phone. He always kept her on hold for at least a couple. But he’d known to expect her to be dramatic about it no matter how long it was. Kennedy Landry wasn’t really the patiently-wait-on-hold type of woman. Kennedy Landry was, however, the type of woman that made a man want to take what tiny semblance of control he could find and grab onto it like it was a lifeboat in the midst of a hurricane.
Kennedy Landry was absolutely like a hurricane, and she’d already pulled him under and drowned him in lust and amusement and fascination and…
Shit, he was half in love with her, and if the only way he had to remind her that she didn’t always have the upper hand in every single one of their interactions was to make her wait on hold on the phone for a few minutes then yeah, he’d do it.
“Well, I’ve been waiting for the reports from last week since Monday,” he told her. “Seems waiting is something we should both get used to.” It was Thursday. She always made him wait until Friday for the reports she was supposed to send on Tuesday.
In part because that meant he’d call her about those reports on Wednesday and they’d fight-flirt for a few minutes. Something they both enjoyed far more than really made sense.
In part because her sending him the reports was ridiculous. He didn’t really need them—he was just curious—and she knew it.
She hated sending the reports, but only because it meant that she was answering to him on some level. She didn’t like that because she didn’t have him wrapped around her little finger like she did every other man she dealt with on a regular basis.
As far as she knew.
Bennett had been very careful not to let on just how tightly wrapped he already was.
“This call could be about an emergency,” she said in a bored voice that indicated: one, it was not an emergency, and two, she was trying really hard to sound bored and not like she was gritting her teeth.
Bennett loved that he rubbed her the wrong way. It only took about ten minutes around Kennedy to figure out that she ran the show with the men in her life. The only daughter and granddaughter in a family of outdoorsy, hardworking, loud-cussing, Louisiana born-and-bred men, Kennedy not only kept up with them on the hardworking and cussing thing, but she got away with murder. Her oldest brother, Sawyer, tried to make her toe the line, but even he was a sap for his baby sister, and it was rare that Kennedy didn’t get her way.
She knew how to handle blue-collar Cajun men, that was for sure.
Bennett wasn’t a blue-collar Cajun man.
Well, he was Cajun, on his mother’s side. But she’d married into money—a lot of money—very much on purpose and had long ago given up things like crawfish sucking and cursing in French. She had married into a white-collar, British-descended family in Savannah, neck-deep in politics and law and class and wealth and snobbery, while Kennedy had been neck-deep in, well, the Louisiana bayou. And everything that went along with that.
Bennett loved the bayou. And everything that went along with that.
Especially the sassy, goth-dressing, impossible-to-impress Cajun girl who thought that the fact he couldn’t fix a transmission, butcher an alligator, or bait a hook was downright embarrassing.
“If it was an emergency, you would have hung up and called back. Over and over again. Leaving progressively more and more threatening messages about what you were going to do to me when you did finally get a hold of me,” he told her, signing off on the bottom of the letter he’d just finished and moving it to the side.
“I would never do that,” she said.
“No?” When she did finally send him reports, it was always in folders that were named things like I’m Not Your Fucking Secretary and If You Ask Me to Get You Coffee It Will Definitely Have Turtle Shit in It.
“If I really needed your attention, I’d start texting. Photos. Naked photos.”
His entire body reacted to that. He cleared his throat. “I would definitely—”
“Of my grandfather.”
Bennett paused. Then groaned. He knew her grandfather. Leo Landry was a great guy. Funny, down-to-earth, honest, loyal. And someone that Bennett absolutely did not ever want to see naked. Ever.
“You’re an evil woman.”
“Remember that.”
Boys of the Bayou Series:
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