I've been reading Jaci Burton for a long time. Her stories have erotica circulating through them as their life-blood. Her characters find their way on the cusp of a carnal tide, sensually exploring their way through a sybaritic world to find their ultimate partner(s). So it is a bit of a surprise to find Jaci writing what looks at first to be a simple adventure story. (By the way, Jaci, belated congratulations on stepping up to Berkley Heat.) My only question is, what took them so long to find you?

Lily and Mac go way back, before she was a Private Investigator and he a member of the Wild Riders. Lily is a one-woman crew, shades of the Tiger Team (a reality tv group of pros filmed infiltrating and exposing weakness in security systems.) She's on the job–albeit sans cameras–investigating the security detail of a museum, and she catches her old heartthrob Mac stealing a vial of something he shouldn't have. Before that can be sorted out, she and Mac confront each other, are discovered, then chased by someone with a gun. After they flee the site of immediate danger, they have a little bit of a personal reunion, and form a temporary alliance. But–the past notwithstanding–how can their partnership be more than temporary, when Mac is a thief, and Lily is one of the good guys?

So they embark on their wild ride. Literally, a ride--on Mac's motorcycle, in a tent, in the shower, at a biker rally in an RV, on Mac himself, through the adventures of today, moving toward a resolution of something intimate the two of them had started years ago, something that got interrupted early on since poor bad boys and poor little rich girls never can find that happy ending. And of course, there's the mystery of the vial, the secret of who the Wild Riders really are, and which side of the law Mac falls on.

For those readers who have come up with Jaci through her plethora of masterfully written ebooks, here in Riding Wild, we find a lot more story, action and adventure mixed in with the spicy sex for which she is so well known. Granted, within the pacing, there is a bit of fabula-interruptus as the adventure pauses rather frequently for Lily and Mac to get reacquainted. The story is also complicated by a little trust deprivation, some betrayal: and the series premise includes all the elements of a best-seller series based on wild bikers on wilder adventures. Ladies, it's not Emma Peel and John Steed, but it's time to strap on your leathers and go for a wild ride under cover(s) with Jaci.

Reviewed by Maîtresse
© March 2008