A new spin off series from A.M. Arthur following her six book series in The Clean Slate Ranch World, the Woods Ranch series of books follows one of the characters from the previous series that got introduced later on in the books, Hugo Turner. Hugo came to Clean Slate from Texas (same town as another series character Colt Woods) and has kept that hidden from Colt and the others at the ranch. When he overhears that his long time crush, and the younger brother of Colt is now the foreman of the family ranch, and that there is a job opening, Hugo decides now is the time to take the job, return home and face his demons.

Brand, in the meantime, has been struggling as the foreman at the family ranch - partially because he didn't really want the job, and also because he chafes at hiding his bisexuality from his family and the conservative community that he lives in. Though he has casual hookups with Ramie and Johnathan, his closest friends in the town, he misses Hugo that he had one encounter with years ago, and his shocked to find out his father hired Hugo to come out.

The book plays out differnetly then its predecessor with the Clean Slate series, but it still retains that rugged western feel, the blend of ranching, the outdoors, and the dismantling of fragile masculinity. One thing that was an improvement was the pacing and inclusion of drama and angst in the book - something that I have found with her earlier works Arthur does sometimes struggle with.

I appreciated that the romance was a slow burn, in part because Hugo was working on other things, and also because Brand had to work on balancing his earlier crush, and how those feelings played out now in the present. However, I feel that the temporal jumps were choppy, even in the middle of chapters and narratives, and I also felt that some things just had no follow (not sure if that is because they will play out in further books or because Arthur decided not to continue with them). I did feel that the ending and climax was rushed, and that the HEA that both men got just seemed to come into being because the book was ending.

All in all, it is def. different compared to her other cowboy romance books, and I will be interested in seeing if her pacing and timing improves with this series with the books to come (also will be intersting to see who she focuses the book on - and if the plot points that were not brought up in the first book come up in the second)

It would have cost A.M. Arthur $0 to make the age gap less drastic when Hugo was underage & forgo the creepy comments about how hot 16-year-old Hugo was to a 24-year-old, but this was otherwise a fun gay read.

Leads: Older bisexual male love interest, younger gay male love interest (8 year age gap)
Contents to be aware of: sexual assault (brief), short descriptions of past physical abuse of a child (& family denial of same), some homophobia, violence/injury,

Spoiler

severely injured, but living

dog
Sex scenes: several explicit

2 stars

The stars are only for the narration (only reason I continued. Michael Dean did a pretty good job with it).. the book didn’t do it for me.. it was boring but since I bought it on kindle I pushed through.. but not worth it..

I remember kinda liking the other cowboy series but this was just not good. I was bored, didn’t connect with any character and didn’t feel the connection with them.

Wasted my time.. but didn’t have another book lined up.. so it was this or searching… I chose wrong

Thank you to NetGalley and Carina Press for allowing me to read this ARC edition. Please note that as it was an ARC, I certainly hope some of my most egregious complaints were rectified by the time it did get to a final printing... Just sayin'.

Before I rip this book apart, why don't we focus on the Pros?
* Loved the sex-positive Ace representation in Ramie (...wait for the but...)
* Quick read though I did feel a bit forced
* Characters are likable

So, obviously this Woods Ranch series is a spin-off from the author's Clean Slate series. Which I did not read. Maybe it would have helped me like this book more? I can't really tell. I have no particular inclination to pick them up after reading this one. So, let's just get down to the brass tacks, eh?

1. I know this was an ARC, but holy cripes there were a lot of really strange typos and issues with the timeline that should have been caught and fixed by even the most amateur of editors
2. This premise is not unique and the storytelling is not unique. At all. I've read this book, from Harlequin, a dozen times before. Nothing about this was new --not even the story being two gay guys. Which is why I doubt that the Clean Slate (and the author's other series) are worth reading. I'm guessing it's a formula, which is fine --but once you know an author's formula, their books become infinitely less interesting. ESPECIALLY when it's the same formula being used by dozens of other authors...
3. I don't want to nitpick here and YES everyone should use whatever label they are most comfortable with IRL. BUT, Brand isn't a real person, so let me inform you: Brand is not bisexual. He is pansexual. I know a lot of people use those terms interchangeably but here's the thing: when a pan person is referred to as bi --that's pan erasure. The same thing that bi people have been complaining about for generations. Brand says himself: his attraction is more about the *person* than the genitalia. That is TEXTBOOK pansexual. And YES Pan people do this to themselves all the time AND I FIND IT INFURIATING as a fellow pansexual. So please, please, please, can we do better?
4. So, I appreciate Ramie as a sex-positive aro ace, but...I'm not sure that's how you portray sex-positive ace. Particularly it was the "Ramie loves sex". Well, yeah, okay. That's fine, but SP aces usually *enjoy* sex. It isn't that they *love it*. They don't necessarily seek it out --if it happens, that's cool. Saying that an asexual "loves sex" is kinda gross, IMHO. I also say that as someone who is a bit on the demi-side.
5. The timeline was messed up in a couple of places. It's lazy storytelling to skip ahead days or weeks at a time, and then "well, just yesterday...". and then refer back to when the previous action was. The most glaring issue I found was toward the end when Brand offers to sleep out in the Bunkhouse that first night and Brutus is back. They had LITERALLY left the dog w/ Rem and Alan the day before (again, wonky timeline!) and they were not set back to be back for at least another day. So, unless the dog came home on his own...
6. The "flashback" and the switch from past to present tense. I have never been so repulsed by a section of fiction in my ENTIRE LIFE. I get that the tense switch was supposed to "pull you back" but honestly...I almost didn't read it. I absolutely loath reading present tense. Hate it with a fiery passion. There was absolutely zero need for it. Italics would have signified the timeline change just as easily and would have irritated me far less.

There were also several spots where I literally had to put my phone down, sigh loudly, call the characters a few choice names, and then resume reading. They were just...so dumb. Immature. Childish. All while also supposedly being "big powerful men". No. No, they were juvenile and showed very little growth.

So...no, I was not impressed with this one. This was also not the quality that I would have expected from an author with so many books under their belt. This was First-Book effort if I ever read it. And honestly, I am more than a little disappointed in Carina for picking this one up too. I have come to expect more from the line, including breaking out of the stereotypical romance boxes. And this one failed on all fronts for me.

Ultimately, I gave this 2 stars because while I didn't like it, I didn't *hate it*, and I did manage to finish it. So...if you're just looking to kill a couple of hours, go for it.

To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.

I got an ARC of this book.

I didn’t recognize the author at first, but then there were some references so I went digging in my goodreads. Turns out I have read another book by Arthur and was eh about it. This book didn’t live up to the other.

I normally check to see if a book is the first in a series before I want to read it. I don’t want to have to deal with catching up. This is listed as the first book in a series, but it is not. It is a spin-off series. The first 20% of the book is constant info dumping to connect this book to another series the author has. I did not sign up for this. I wanted a cowboy romance, not the history of two ranches slammed down my throat to set the scene. Just so much was shoved at me at once and most of it did not matter at all. This could have been an easier book to read if none of that was really mentioned up front and the reader found out along the way or if Hugo just didn’t have connections to the other ranch at all.

The romance was flat. They supposedly loved each other since Hugo was 16 and they started to hook up in the hay loft. Eww. No. Pedophilia. The fact that Brand is so much older and that was the catalyst for their current romance skeeved me out to no end. This was not just the kiss the kiss that was hinted at. They were grinding against each other and hard. This was dry humping a child. It was not ok. I know 16 is not a baby, but it is below the age of consent in Texas and Brand was his mid twenties at least. It was 9 or 10 years age difference. It was creepy.

There was just a lot not happening. Most of the book was either info dumping or the men ignoring each other. They were so slow to actually interact that it would have been a better book about friendship than romance. There was just so much that didn’t work for me. What little worked was that one of them was bi and there was a sex positive aroace female character. It was refreshing to see more than just gay, but that was literally all the exciting bits about this book for me.

Add in the sexual abuse plot and it was just a no from me.

I've been on a romance slump for my last couple of reads. Books I thought would've been 4 stars or higher that ended up not measuring up so this was even more of a delight. I think I love Queer romances because it's harder.. not harder to love but harder because of outside sources fighting against you... and a cowboy romance there's definitely going to be people who don't want to see you together. This was sweet and sexy (but not overdone). Definitely some hard topics with bullying and lack of parental support plagued Hugo but that was nicely balanced by the Woods family. The audiobook narration was okay (wasn't thrilled with "Hugo's" voice ) and some overreaction on the voicing. This book definitely served its purpose of bringing me out of my romance slump.

3.75 stars