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A review by jugglingpup
His Fresh Start Cowboy by A.M. Arthur
1.0
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 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.