DAY 26

Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  His Fallow Heart

SERIES:  Daily Dose–Never Too Late

AUTHOR:  Ava Hayden

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  42 pages

BLURB:  

Can a lonely, aging farmer and a loveless artist whose creativity has gone missing find happiness on the prairies?

Life would be perfect for fifty-two-year-old farmer Finn Garrity if he just had someone to snuggle with by the fireplace. But single gay men aren’t exactly thick on the ground in Eagle Tree, Alberta.

Successful artist Philip Connaway wonders if his creative dry spell has anything to do with his dried-up love life. When Philip takes his nephew into farm country in search of a snowy owl to photograph, he meets Finn, who offers assistance. Together, they find the elusive bird—and much more.

Despite the attraction between them, differences, misunderstandings, and self-doubt threaten to end Finn and Philip’s romance. For a future together, Finn must take a risk, and Philip must find a way to bring love to Finn’s fallow heart.

REVIEW:  

When artist Philip Connaway takes his nephew out looking for a snowy owl to photograph he never expected to bump into Finn Garrity at a local diner. Then again, he had  been expecting to find an owl, and that was a bit of a bust, so expectations are clearly made to be broken. After Finn tells them that he might be able to help with their Great Quest, Philip finds himself strangely attracted to the solitary farmer. They come from different worlds, but there is something about Finn that stirs hope in Philip–and vice versa.

Every time I read a book about artists I get a bit melancholy. You see, there is a picture out there somewhere, that I once saw on a trip to Seattle, that has a bit of my soul that I will never get back. Which is depressing and a bit unfair–but there is not much I can do about it. Short of randomly walking into every house in the world and taking a quick peak around, I will probably never see it again. Had I known that this was going to happen, I would have never walked into that random gallery, nor stood and stared at that painting for 15 minutes, before being dragged out by family to do more tourist-y things. But I did, and now I am stuck being reminded periodically that someone out there owns a small piece of me I will never get back.

Which, really, has nothing to do with this book, other then my somewhat turbulent love affair with MCs who are painters/artists. It was basically the reason I picked up this story to review.

I am quite enjoying the fact that these Daily Dose stories have older MCs in them. Sometimes it is hard to remember that life does not end at 30 (which, since I am rapidly approaching that birthday, is a good reminder) and that love can find you no matter what age you are. Finn may be just over 50, but that doesn’t mean his hopes and dreams no longer count for anything. And while he sees Philip, who is famous in his field and surround by people a lot younger and flashier than Finn, as a bit of a unlikely prospect, he still wants him. And at his age, he at least knows that sitting around and waiting for things to happen is not likely to grant success.

For the most part this was a very nice story. The characters were interesting, and I liked how real the romance between them felt. There were a few things that didn’t quite work well for me. One was that while I was extremely grateful that the author did signal pov changes with line breaks, I do wish that they had not happened quite so rapidly. It was hard to really get a sense of the characters when after three paragraphs we are back in the head of the other MC. Two sides of the conversation is great…but it was a little jarring.

I’m also unsure what was going on in that last scene/newspaper article/whatever that was.

Though this might not have been as great as the other two stories I read, but it still was pretty good. Well worth the read, most definitely.

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner

Complete Daily Dose Collection

Amazon 

ARe