Reviewed by Vicki

TITLE: Chasing the Horizon

SERIES: Sequel to Sunrise Over Savannah

AUTHOR: Scotty Cade

PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH: 200 pages

BLURB:

Needing a lifestyle change, Garner Holt, an uptight workaholic psychologist, buys a sailboat and trades in his prestigious job in New York City for a life on the water. After engine failure and six weeks in Savannah, Georgia for repair, he arrives in Key West, Florida early one morning and encounters a half-dressed hooligan walking along the docks of the marina. Garner immediately thinks this barefoot and shirtless man with a shaved head, multiple tattoos, and piercings in every orifice is going to rob him. He prepares for the worst. Instead, the stranger passes Garner by and climbs on a boat two slips down. With the threat of danger gone, Garner is surprisingly intrigued.

Hawken Bristol is used to being on the receiving end of stereotypes. He sees the fear on the stranger’s face, recognizes the rigidity in his stance, but is too tired from his wild night of partying to engage the frightened stranger. A few cat and mouse encounters around town lead to an uncanny attraction. However, after Garner helps Hawken dock his boat in a windstorm, sparks start to fly. But this new liaison brings up old baggage that threatens to derail everything they have going.

REVIEW:

Oh… Garner finds himself a bad boy! Or does he?

We met Garner in Scotty Cade’s Sunrise Over Savannah, he was a wonderful character that played a huge part in reuniting two lost men, Thompson and Hank. But Garner didn’t get a man of his own, and after sorting out Thompson and Hank’s issues, Garner sailed off in to the sunset. Chasing the Horizon picks up shortly after Sunrise ends. Garner has continued on his journey of self discovery and stops in Key West to spend a few days before heading on. His first morning in the marina he witnesses the “walk of shame” of a fellow boat owner, Hawken Bristol. Garner sees Hawk coming down the dock, in nothing but a pair of jeans, covered in tattoos and piercings and thinks he’s about to be attacked….

This first glimpse of Hawk leads to a bit of hide and seek between the two men, ending in an explosive sex scene on Garner’s boat! Garner is a great character, sometimes uptight and cold, but then we see him let loose one night at a club, and I think he’s really trying to get out of himself. He’s lonely, on the run from his old life, sometimes happy to be that way, sometimes not. Hawk was harder for me to get a read on. As he is for Garner as well. To all appearances he’s a bad boy, tattooed and pierced, but he’s really not that way. He’s a slut certainly,  admittedly never “tapping” a man more than once, never spending the night, never getting attached. Other than his friend Justin, he’s a loner. And even Justin has to work hard to keep connected to Hawk. But there is something these two men see in each other that they need. They are both lonely and drifting, neither expecting anything out of their time together than a bit of companionship. They do discuss it, agreeing to spend some time together before Garner moves on, making no commitments, but things don’t always work out as planned.

There is a nice connection between Garner and Hawk, like recognizing like. Both emotionally (even though they don’t see it immediately) and physically. Hawk starts out wanting it rough from Garner, and gets it that way the first time they are together, but their second encounter is quite gentle and sweet. I liked both of the scenes, the difference between them was great. Garner showing Hawk how it can be between two men who do have more than a one night experience. Then watching as they realize there might be more to this than fuck buddies was fun as well. They both seemed so surprised and confused to find themselves wanting more out of this relationship.

I have to say the plot wasn’t as good for me as the story in Sunrise was, there wasn’t the drama I was expecting. There is some excitement at the end of the book with Justin that does throw chaos in to the story, and is the final catalyst to getting these two moving in the right direction, but most of the story was fairly calm. Lots of conversations, Garner does some analysing of Hawk trying to understand him better and they both discuss their commitment issues. Justin was actually more interesting to me as a character than Hawk was. There wasn’t anything wrong with Hawk, but he didn’t have the as much depth as he could have. He needed more baggage! Thompson and Hank make an appearance as well, and spend some time hanging out with Garner and Hawk, it was nice to see them happy together.

So I liked this book just fine, the characters were interesting, the physical and emotional connection was there, the writing was good, and the plot was good. Yes there could have been more drama (sorry Justin, you provided some but not enough!), but I really did enjoy it overall. And I was very happy to see Garner get his man, I felt sorry for him at the end of Sunrise!

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon