Book Review: The Cowboy and The Stray by Lainie Anderson

 I believe this book came out some time ago, but I read less physical books these days so it didn't catch my attention until I saw the audiobook on Net Galley.  

I am a sucker for the Cowboy romance as a genre.  It makes no sense to me, I don't know a think about actual ranches, cows, horses, livestock, nor have I knowingly met an actual cowboy in real life. 

Thus- the cowboy romance is much like reading a dragon fantasy for me, as I'm pretty sure that the reality of ranching isn't all tumbling into bed with impossibly pretty women and men.  But I still want to read all about it! The Cowboy and the Stray did not disappoint me! 

I personally do not like this cover.  It was designed by a professional graphic designer, who I am not going to name because this is without a doubt, a bad cover.  I have been looking at it for weeks while listening to this book and I can barely tell what is supposed to be on the cover. I understand there are a few other covers, and if I were to purchase this book, I would need one of the other covers. Love the lettering though, that is really a good choice.  Would have been better to just have a plain brown cover in my opinion! 

Without any spoilers, this is kind of a comfortable romance that I was able to sink into.  We have an abused (but very tough and stubborn) woman on the run. She conveniently crashes on a ranch full of mostly single men - who also happen to be wolf shifters.  She is - of course- impossibly fragile and strong at the same time, and beautiful. Eventually her past catches up to her, and about 10 pages of drama occurs, and then the family of shifters settles back into a happy ranching life. 

While this all sounds trite, I LOVED it.  I have had a stressful year, and this level of quickly resolved conflict was exactly what I needed in my reading life. In my actual life, I could also go for a man who shifts into a wolf, because - yes why not? 

First thing I did was recommend it to my friend who likes PNR  and shifters in particular, and then next thing I am doing is looking for the next audiobook! I mean, there are still some single men on that ranch, and it would be a shame if they couldn't flex out their wolf muscles!  

The audiobook had dual narration with Loretta Rawlins and Tristan Josiah did a super job with the story - I will say they both read with the sort of dramatic pauses that I'm not super fond of, but do set the tone for a dreamy romance. Narration was clear and I felt like it did add to the story, as I felt like the voice tones did flesh out the main characters more. 

STATS

First Published: June 27 2025  New Audiobook 11/3/26 

Pages: 534

Available as an Audio Book :  YES  ~11.5 hours

               Trigger Warnings: Murder, domestic violence, violence against women, paranormal happenings- people turning into wolves, guns, car accident, 

(this is not a full list, read responsibly)