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jugglingpup's review
3.0
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Book sixteen in the gay cowboy romance marathon. I never claimed it would be all cis men in the marathon. So the reading marathon just keeps growing. I saw this was on sale and I jumped on it (btw the sequel is also on sale, which means of course I got it). I need to get back to reading the ARCs that I have, but gay cowboys have me trapped in this weird land.
This is a new to me author and I didn’t even fully read the description, which is the norm for me anyway. I was a little let down by the book. It felt like it was too insta-love. The characters are so deep in the closet that one even married a man to hide from who she was. So why would they suddenly be flirting so openly in less than a week with a stranger? It just felt a little forced. If there had been a bit more to the beginning, before they were snowed in I would have fallen so much harder for this book.
I had a couple huge issues with this book. love does not cure trauma and abuse. Seriously. Just because one of the characters is finally with a woman does not negate all the emotional and sexual abuse that she had faced. I am also annoyed that the author relied on sexual abuse/corrective rape as a plot line. It was graphic enough that it could be triggering, but not overly graphic that it felt like it was supposed to be exciting (like a lot of cis male authors will do). I just wish the heavier plots would have been given more weight and more consideration. The story could have been stronger and felt more realistic with more of a delay in certain aspects of the relationship.
There were a bunch of cute moments. Moments that I could have happily had go on forever. I wish there were more of them. Once a physical relationship started, the women did pretty much nothing else. It felt like the story stopped once they started to cuddle. It was pretty annoying that magically they were both amazing at sex and there was no awkward in the bedroom when they both had never been with a woman before (not to mention all of the trauma one of the characters had been through). It felt a bit like what Andrew Grey did with his sexual assault. The trauma was there until it wasn’t convenient any more.
What I did like about the book were the characters. I loved that a woman was attempting to make it on her own on a farm that was falling apart. She knew nothing and she was stubbornly doing her best. I loved that she finally accepted help and that help came in a gorgeous cowboy that also needed help. There was a lot here that I did like. This was like top tier gay cowboy plot. An emotionally damaged cowboy learns how to love and heal with the help of someone else Done. I am ALL ABOUT THAT. I just needed a bit more for this to be an amazing book. I hope the sequel gives me what I want. If it does, then I am won over and will be gathering the author’s other books. Not that I need more books.
I loved that there was a small town feel, but it was shown in both good and bad lights. I loved how there was a character that just took in every kid that he could. That he would lend out his farm hands to help others. I just loved the good guy father in this. He is the sort of man that I need in cowboy books to be that voice of reason and the direct juxtaposition to the emotionally damaged cowboy. It was amusing that he was the father of the cowboy this time. I hope to see more of the family in the sequel. It just felt a bit like he was just there for a prop and to move the plot along. He didn’t get the full use of being in the book. (I also hope that the dream of having goats is achieved. If that happens, I can ignore a lot of my issues in the book.)
Overall, not a bad book. It was clearly a book by a newer author. Someone that isn’t fully polished yet. Someone who is still growing. Someone who doesn’t know what slow burn is, but will maybe get there in future books.
Book sixteen in the gay cowboy romance marathon. I never claimed it would be all cis men in the marathon. So the reading marathon just keeps growing. I saw this was on sale and I jumped on it (btw the sequel is also on sale, which means of course I got it). I need to get back to reading the ARCs that I have, but gay cowboys have me trapped in this weird land.
This is a new to me author and I didn’t even fully read the description, which is the norm for me anyway. I was a little let down by the book. It felt like it was too insta-love. The characters are so deep in the closet that one even married a man to hide from who she was. So why would they suddenly be flirting so openly in less than a week with a stranger? It just felt a little forced. If there had been a bit more to the beginning, before they were snowed in I would have fallen so much harder for this book.
I had a couple huge issues with this book. love does not cure trauma and abuse. Seriously. Just because one of the characters is finally with a woman does not negate all the emotional and sexual abuse that she had faced. I am also annoyed that the author relied on sexual abuse/corrective rape as a plot line. It was graphic enough that it could be triggering, but not overly graphic that it felt like it was supposed to be exciting (like a lot of cis male authors will do). I just wish the heavier plots would have been given more weight and more consideration. The story could have been stronger and felt more realistic with more of a delay in certain aspects of the relationship.
There were a bunch of cute moments. Moments that I could have happily had go on forever. I wish there were more of them. Once a physical relationship started, the women did pretty much nothing else. It felt like the story stopped once they started to cuddle. It was pretty annoying that magically they were both amazing at sex and there was no awkward in the bedroom when they both had never been with a woman before (not to mention all of the trauma one of the characters had been through). It felt a bit like what Andrew Grey did with his sexual assault. The trauma was there until it wasn’t convenient any more.
What I did like about the book were the characters. I loved that a woman was attempting to make it on her own on a farm that was falling apart. She knew nothing and she was stubbornly doing her best. I loved that she finally accepted help and that help came in a gorgeous cowboy that also needed help. There was a lot here that I did like. This was like top tier gay cowboy plot. An emotionally damaged cowboy learns how to love and heal with the help of someone else Done. I am ALL ABOUT THAT. I just needed a bit more for this to be an amazing book. I hope the sequel gives me what I want. If it does, then I am won over and will be gathering the author’s other books. Not that I need more books.
I loved that there was a small town feel, but it was shown in both good and bad lights. I loved how there was a character that just took in every kid that he could. That he would lend out his farm hands to help others. I just loved the good guy father in this. He is the sort of man that I need in cowboy books to be that voice of reason and the direct juxtaposition to the emotionally damaged cowboy. It was amusing that he was the father of the cowboy this time. I hope to see more of the family in the sequel. It just felt a bit like he was just there for a prop and to move the plot along. He didn’t get the full use of being in the book. (I also hope that the dream of having goats is achieved. If that happens, I can ignore a lot of my issues in the book.)
Overall, not a bad book. It was clearly a book by a newer author. Someone that isn’t fully polished yet. Someone who is still growing. Someone who doesn’t know what slow burn is, but will maybe get there in future books.
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