Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Bare for You
SERIES: Outback Skies #3
AUTHOR: Lexxie Couper
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: 111 pages
BLURB:
Not all cowboys ride horses.
Jeremy Craig is on the cusp of being named the deputy prime minister of Australia. Which means he’s got to play his cards right and stay deep in the closet. Australia is a lot of things, but there’s no way the country is ready for a gay prime minister. So far, it’s been an easy ruse to maintain. Until he meets Ryan Taylor. Then all bets are off.
Ryan is sick of the Brokeback Mountain jokes. For starters, he’s an Australian stockman, not an American cowboy. For another, he spends most of his working days alone in a helicopter, not on the back of a horse. As Wallaby Ridge’s only contract heli-musterer, he gets to escape any small-town scorn high in the sky. He’s happy up there. Lonely, but happy. Who needs passion and wild sexual pleasure in their life when they have the boundless skies of the Outback, right?
Then Jeremy Craig climbs into his chopper…
Warning: This book may change your opinion of politicians. It also contains scorching, no-holds-barred passion between two alpha men, one with a Ryan Gosling fetish and the other with a secret deeper than the ocean. Yes, it’s that complicated.
REVIEW:
Jeremy Craig is a politician with a secret–which really isn’t all that shocking. Still, if anyone finds out that he is gay, there is a good chance that his secret would kill his career. Which is exactly why he should not be drooling over the helicopter pilot that has been hired to fly him around for his week in the Outback. No matter how drool worthy Ryan Taylor is (hint: he is really drool worthy). So Jeremy intends to keep his hands, dreams, and lips to himself. Really. He does. Honest.
I didn’t originally notice that this was book three in what was previously a m/f only series, so I was more than a little panicked that I would have no idea what was going on. But other then a few spots where I was pretty sure the book was talking about something that had happened in a previous book, it was totally good as a standalone. Thank god. There is nothing more frustrating than accidentally starting a series three books in and being completely lost.
Jeremy and Ryan were incredibly hot together. The chemistry that these two felt was more than clear and when Jeremy basically drags Ryan out of the helicopter to kiss the everloving daylights out of him, I may have swooned a bit. These were two guys who just couldn’t get enough of each other, despite how much of a bad idea the whole thing was.
I was totally expecting one of them to get snake-bit on the ass, though. With all the things in Australia that seem out to kill you, I’m surprised that more MCs don’t meet with an embarrassing and final end. But, I guess that would be a bit of a downer in a romance story.
The resolution of this story was a bit…um, fairytale. I liked it, and it was really nice, but even with my cursory knowledge of Australian politics it seemed a bit far-fetched. Hell, even in American politics I would have a hard time buying it. Though, that could all just be my general distaste of politics and the idiots that call themselves politicians.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable book. The characters were interesting, and I will admit to maybe wanting to go back sometime and give the other books a read. I do love books set in Australia, and this one was just the right mix of heat and good story telling.
RATING:
BUY LINKS: