• book,  Uncategorized

    REVIEW: Never Stay Gone by Tal Bauer

    59223355. sy475

    Big Bend Texas Rangers: Never Stay Gone – Tal Bauer

    Six bodies in a single grave… in the same West Texas country where Dakota left everything behind.

    Every beat of my heart belongs to you.

    Thirteen years ago, Dakota Jennings thought he’d found his forever when he fell in love with Shane Carson. But one afternoon shattered their love story, and both Dakota and Shane left Rustler, Texas, with broken hearts. Even now, Dakota is still feeling the agony of losing Shane. Sure, he’s a Texas Ranger, but that’s not how he wanted to live his life. All he ever wanted was to love Shane.

    Loving you is the only time I feel alive.

    Shane’s life was supposed to be different than this. There’d been a plan, ever since he was knee-high to his father. But falling for Dakota spun Shane’s world upside down, and for years, Shane has had nothing but the memories of all that he lost: Dakota’s gentle touch, and the sweetness of his lips, and the star-strewn nights they spent wrapped in each other’s arms.

    West of the Pecos, there is no law.

    When the Rangers get the call about six bodies being pulled out of a mass grave in West Texas, the governor sends Dakota to run the investigation. Dakota heads back to his hometown and comes face-to-face with the last man he ever expected to see again: only now, he’s Deputy Shane Carson… Dakota’s local partner assigned to the case.

    There’s nothing Dakota wants more than a second chance with Shane, but so much is stacked against them: six corpses, a murderer on the loose, and history that refuses to stay buried. And the bodies keep piling up as Dakota and Shane try to run the killer down across the West Texas plains.

    In a moment, everything changes: the hunters become the hunted, the past fractures, and all Dakota thought he knew comes tumbling down. Secrets break wide open as Dakota remembers–

    This is West Texas, and out here, nothing is as it seems.

    Big Bend County is a place of beauty and desolation, of secrets and small towns. Where the past and the present collide, and where nothing stays hidden forever.

    This MM romantic suspense is the first in the new Big Bend Texas Rangers series. Come along for the West Texas sunsets, the heart-pounding thrills, and the hard-won Happy Ever Afters.


    Never Stay Gone is the first book of the romantic suspense, police procedural series, Big Bend Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers are the badass officers who patrol the West Texas desert areas up to the border.

    The story opens with Deputy Sheriff Shane Carson stumbling upon a grave of six women in various stages of decomposition. With talks of a serial killer being bandied about, the Texas governor tasks ex-military Texas Ranger and, also her personal guard, Dakota Jennings to investigate.

    Shane and Dakota were friends turned secret boyfriends back in high school. Shane broke things off because of pressure from his over-bearing dad just when Dakota was about to tell him of his plans after they graduated. With his world crashing down around him, Dakota disappeared. After 13 years, he’s back in Big Bend, a changed man but somehow still in love with the same boy.

    This book has all the hallmarks of what I have come to recognize as the Tal Bauer style. There’s the thrilling suspense, the twisty-turny plot, people in high places with the dirtiest secrets, the swoony second chance romance, the mysterious pivotal event the characters agonize over but would turn out to be different from what their internal monologue seem to convey. Let’s not forget the amazing John Solo emoting the heck out of everything.

    I loved how it was done in The Murder Between Us and The Night Of. Both of these were rated 5 stars. Here, it took me a while to get into the story. The opening chapters weren’t hooking me as much as I wanted them to. Descriptions of landscapes tend to make my eyes gloss over from boredom. I was propelled by John Solo’s performance. I’m glad I stuck around because things picked up once the investigation started.

    Drama was on an all-time high, with many highly emotional scenes. And when the tears came, they kept on coming. This is quite possibly, the weepiest MM romance I’ve ever read! Waterworks from manly men could be deeply moving but very annoying when they start bawling at every other scene. Shane, in particular, was very weepy. The guy had it rough but jeez!

    Shane was the golden boy, the quarterback, and his dad’s only hope of reclaiming the family legacy. He lived under his father’s thumb, his entire life already planned out by the older man. His only act of rebellion was his relationship with Dakota.

    After his football career fizzled out, Shane worked as the deputy sheriff. This is where he is at his best. He’s a bit green when it comes to murder investigations, but he knows how to connect with people. He’s always ready to share a kind word.

    Dakota was the cowboy son of drifters Shane befriended during high school football tryouts. Since then, the two were inseparable, mutually pining after one another until Shane struck up the courage to make a move.

    If there was ever one guy made to be a book boyfriend, Dakota’s your man. He was completely devoted to Shane then, he’s still devoted now. Even as a teenager, he planned his whole life on how to support Shane’s dream of becoming a pro football player. As an adult, he built a house for his man. With his own hands.

    I’ll never forget that flashback to their last day in senior year where he presented his meager budget for his and Shane’s living expenses, a.k.a. his heart on a plate, with all the earnestness of a youth in love, only to have it handed back. It was one of the most heartbreaking scenes ever! The sensation of falling and shattering to pieces was palpable. My chest hurt for Dakota. I nearly started sobbing myself.

    The reconciliation scene? Hooboy, people were flayed raw! That’s how intense it was. I was glad the book is written in 3rd person dual POV. The emotional impact of a 1st person POV would have been too much.

    I was super happy they grabbed that second chance and made the most of it. But then I got paranoid that the author might pull another plot twist and pull the rug out from everyone’s feet. This was still halfway through the book and I don’t think I could bear any more relationship drama.

    I got so anxious about it I stopped reading. It wasn’t until I read a review saying things went well for the couple after that reunion that I breathed a sigh of relief and picked it up again. The rest of the story focused on the mystery.

    I’d like to say the mystery was predictable. In hindsight, it followed the usual pattern of the author. But I was the gullible fool who fell for the red herring, suspecting the loner who was actually going above and beyond his duty. So good job on that nice bit of redirection!

    When I thought about it, Never Stay Gone is written like Shane and Dakota’s favorite country songs. Full of lonely cowboys, small-town life, first kisses, devastating heartbreaks, and sappy love declarations that make you cringe and make you smile too. This is truly a book that doesn’t pull its emotional punches. They hit you, hard, straight in the kokoro. It’s not my favorite, but it will stay with me for a long time.

    Rating:
    3.5 Stars – that place between like and love

    Soundtrack: Lost & Found
    Artist: The Midnight
    Album: Lost & Found

    P.S.

    This book comes with an official soundtrack. Check out the songs from the CD Dakota gave to Shane. Because he’s dorky like that.


    If you like my content, please consider using my Amazon affiliate links below to buy your copy of Never Stay Gone. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying Amazon purchases at no additional cost to you.

    US | UK

    You can also use my Bookshop affiliate links to buy paperbacks and MP3 CD audiobooks and help support independent bookstores.

    NEVER STAY GONE

    If you like my content, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi or PayPal. Your donations will help keep this website going. Thank you so much!

  • book,  Uncategorized

    AUDIO REVIEW: Home for Christmas by R.J. Scott

    42903870. sy475

    Texas: Home for Christmas – R.J. Scott

    Can Connor show River a real family Christmas?

    When Connor finds River on the roof of the campus admin building, he doesn’t know what to do. His friend is drunk, and shouting into a snowstorm, a bottle of vodka in his hand. The easy part is getting River down; the hard part is insisting River comes home with Connor for Christmas.

    River doesn’t have a family, or any place outside of college that he calls home. Not that it matters to him; he’s happy being alone for Christmas in his budget motel, watching reruns of Elf. Only, Connor keeps telling wildly improbable stories of the perfect family celebrations at his parents’ ranch in Texas, and it’s wearing River down. He didn’t ask to be kidnapped. He didn’t want to fall in love with the entire Campbell-Hayes family. But he does.

    From one Christmas to the next. This is Connor’s year to rescue River, and himself, for them both to mess things up, make things right, fall in lust and finally, for Connor to show the man he loves what being part of a family can mean.


    Home for Christmas is Connor and River’s story of friendship-turned-love. The two young men couldn’t be more different. Connor came from money. He had a sunny disposition, a glass half-full kind of person, a do-gooder who loves to fix things. River is a talented gymnast and diver. He had bounced from foster home to foster home and struggles with his black moods, his epilepsy and anxieties. He doesn’t want to be ‘fixed’.

    The story showed Connor and River spending the holidays at the ranch and how their feelings for each evolved. It started with Connor finding River on the roof, drunk and attempting to balance on his hands. Afraid that of what River might do to himself, Connor very persistently did not leave him alone and all but forced him to come with him to his family ranch for Christmas. Right off the bat, Connor’s tendency to help and fix things were obvious. Said tendencies also misfired at the latter point, a mistake that almost cost him River.

    River’s conflict and loneliness tugged at the heart. He was envious of a perfect family, wished he was part of it and also did not want the Campbell-Hayes to see his ugly side. The book tackled, among many things, mental issues like fear of abandonment. I liked how it was handled. There were no miracle cures. Instead, there were people, like Connor, who were willing to be a constant in River’s life.

    We meet different members of the sprawling Campbell-Hayes family, starting with Jack and Riley all the way to the aunts and cousins and by extension, the Legacy family. As a person who don’t do the holiday socializing thing, I sympathized with River and Jack, Connor’s Pappa. I liked that the author understood that anxious feeling of being in a crowd and gave the introverts their own quiet moments.

    This is my first Texas book and my first time meeting the Campbell-Hayes family. Like River, I was both overwhelmed and delighted by this warm, loving, larger-than-life family. Now I have to read book one just to see how everything started. Even though I started at book 9, it can be read as a standalone. There were enough backgrounders via improbable family stories to help you sort through the dynamics of the clan.

    I am a bit torn with the narration. Sean Crisden did a stellar job portraying the different characters and all the emotions really came through, especially River’s and Connor’s. However, I found his reading a little too fast. There were some moments where I thought a slightly longer pause would have been needed. I almost missed some parts where the characters did something because the sentences ran together. Slowing down the audiobook to 0.5X made it sound weird. I’m not sure if the reading speed is how Crisden typically narrates. I have listened to two of his audiobooks by Megan Derr and Riley Hart and I enjoyed how he read them.

    Still, Home for Christmas is a great holiday novella. It’s full of love and family with characters you couldn’t help but be drawn to. It’s a well-done hurt/comfort story with just the right balance of angst and sweetness. Recommended if you are in the mood for a Christmas story about opening your heart to love, hope and future possibilities.

    P.S.

    Thank you to Signal Boost Promotions and Audible for providing a copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

    Rating:
    3.5 Stars – that place between like and love

    Soundtrack: Driving Under Stars
    Artist: Marika Hackman
    Album: Wonderland

  • book,  Uncategorized

    Hexworld: Wild WIld Hex – Jordan L. Hawk

    Can a lawman witch find love with an outlaw familiar?

    After weeks spent tracking down the gentleman bandit Rafael, Hexas Ranger Enoch Bright finally has the outlaw in his sights. He doesn’t expect to find out Rafael is his familiar.

    When Enoch runs afoul of the murderous Bone Gang, he and Rafael strike a deal to take down the gang together. As lawman and outlaw work together, Enoch soon realizes the next thing the gentleman bandit steals will be his heart.

    Can a lawman witch find love with an outlaw familiar?

    After weeks spent tracking down the gentleman bandit Rafael, Hexas Ranger Enoch Bright finally has the outlaw in his sights. He doesn’t expect to find out Rafael is his familiar.

    When Enoch runs afoul of the murderous Bone Gang, he and Rafael strike a deal to take down the gang together. As lawman and outlaw work together, Enoch soon realizes the next thing the gentleman bandit steals will be his heart.

    A Hexworld novella set in the heart of Texas featuring a hawk familiar and the only black ranger in the west. With fast-paced gun slinging action and a train heist, it’s almost as fun as the main novels only that it is too short. The witch+familiar magic is as fascinating as ever and it was interesting to see the dynamics work out there in the wilds. I hope Enoch and Rafael visit New York and meet the other guys 

    P.S.

    Reviews on Hexworld books here

    Rating:

    3.5 Stars – that place between like and love

    Soundtrack: Hello Hawk
    Artist: Superchunk
    Album: Come Pick Me Up

    (source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36489289-wild-wild-hex)