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)