Mary Calmes

Books: Romance | LGBT

Frog (2012)

This story doesn't open with a sex scene–but it comes close. If it hadn't had the opening scene of the phone call I would have put it down and not looked back, but I was curious, so I skimmed and read on.

Weber Yates has spent his entire adult life on the rodeo scene as a bull rider. But he's never going to be a start, so now he's looking for a job as a ranch hand, because he has no other marketable skills.

But a trip to visit Doc–Cyrus–upends everything.

Weber, despite being a bull rider, is a complete and total cinnamon roll.

The little kids were easy to find because when I growled, they squealed. The others were harder, with Tristan being surprisingly bendable, able to hide in weird places.

Because Web has no skills valued by society, he believes that he has no value to society–and he doesn't understand why Cyrus would want him for anything except occasional sex.

He is obviously wrong about this, as is clear the second you see him interacting with Cyrus' nephews.

I liked the art about Web discovering that he has value far beyond what he ever thought. I also like the slow discovery of just how different Cyrus is around Weber. And I liked the nephews very much.

As noted (and as expected) the sex didn't work at all–especially since it opens with a casual hook up–but I was curious enough about the other elements to keep reading.

This is single POV, and would not have worked otherwise–everything needed to be from Web's point of view, as he mate Cyrus' family, and we learn about Weber through those interactions.

There was a lot of enjoy about the story. However, the final resolution was just … too much. Just a little bit too much of a muchness. But how Weber slowly came to believe that he had value was lovely, and although it felt a little rushed, I did appreciate Micah's story arc as well.

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Rating: 6/10