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Annie's Wild Ride is Alina Adams's 2002 standalone romance, the rare contemporary romance written by a writer with a working-day-job background in sports broadcasting (Adams was an ABC and ESPN figure skating researcher). Annie Sumter, a young horse trainer, takes a job with a thoroughbred owner in upstate New York and falls for one of the more complicated guys at the track.
What makes Annie's Wild Ride worth picking up is the working-stable procedural detail. Adams treats the horse-training and breeding-and-racing material the way she treats figure skating in her later Bex Levy mysteries: as a working profession with real internal logic. The romance arc is exactly what the cover promises (chemistry, complication, third-act misunderstanding, resolution) and clean enough to read in a sitting.
Recommended for romance readers who want procedural texture (Susan Elizabeth Phillips's Chicago Stars books, Pamela Britton's NASCAR series) and for readers looking for books like Annie's Wild Ride in the working-track-life romance subgenre. Three stars, with the horse procedural earning the extra half.
Related reads
If you liked Annie's Wild Ride
Axel of Evil
by Alina Adams
Axel of Evil by Alina Adams 2005 review. The third Figure Skating Mystery sends Bex Levy to Moscow for a competition where one of the favorites is murdered, again.
Death Drop
by Alina Adams
Death Drop by Alina Adams 2007 review. The fourth Figure Skating Mystery takes Bex Levy backstage at a New York Stars on Ice tour where one of the skaters has been hospitalized after a sabotaged spin.
On Thin Ice
by Alina Adams
On Thin Ice by Alina Adams 2004 review. The first Figure Skating Mystery sends Russian-American researcher Bex Levy to investigate a Sandra Bullock-style backstage skating murder.
Murder on Ice
by Alina Adams
The first Alina Adams figure-skating mystery. ABC researcher solving rink murders. Skating fan service done well.
Skate Crime
by Alina Adams
A late Alina Adams figure-skating mystery. The formula running smoothly. Skating fans will be happy.
When a Man Loves a Woman
by Alina Adams
When a Man Loves a Woman by Alina Adams 1998 review. A Manhattan tabloid newspaper romance pre-dating the Figure Skating Mysteries, with the same working-day-job texture transferred to print journalism.
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