For cowboy hotness, the stories in this anthology hit the mark. They miss on the number and heat of the sexual encounters, as well as the conflicts that feel too complicated for such a short format. Overall, this anthology is a tasty nibble for the dog days of August.

In Johnson’s “Two for the Road,” a grown-up child actor runs away from her confining life and ends up with two cowboys who fulfill her sexual fantasies. Being together isn’t possible unless they’re all willing to take a big chance. Mixing investigative journalism with a red-hot attraction nets a reporter and her rancher source a relationship that shouldn’t be in the “Soul of a Cowboy,” by Harper. Despite their sometimes-opposing viewpoints, they discover that love makes a future together easy. When a deep-in-debt rancher tries to play the hero, he ends up injured, and the woman he secretly loves comes to his rescue in LaFleur’s “Trouble in Boots.” But his stubbornness about money could end the relationship before it even gets started. (APHRODISIA, Aug., 320 pp., $14.00)
Reviewed by: 
M.H. Morrison