Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  The Trail Boss and the Brat

SERIES:  Farthingdale Ranch Book 6

AUTHOR:  Jackie North

PUBLISHER:  Blue Rain Press

LENGTH:  309 pages

RELEASE DATE:  March 22, 2022

BLURB:

Even a rugged heart can be broken, but can it find love again?

After a fierce betrayal, Quint closes off his heart, walking the earth alone. He can’t trust anyone, even if they need him. He can’t, he just can’t.

He’s designed his life to follow a steady, even cadence. There are rules.

• Rule Number One – Don’t mess with Quint.
• Rule Number Two – Don’t disobey Quint on a trail ride.
• Rule Number Three – Don’t ever forget rule 1 or rule 2.

Then along comes Ashley, who doesn’t follow any rules, especially ones that keep him from getting exactly what he wants.

A gay m/m cowboy romance with opposites attract, fish out of water, grumpy/sunshine, rugged meets bratty. A little sweet, a little steamy, with a guaranteed HEA.

REVIEW:

The Trail Boss and the Brat is (sadly) the final book in Jackie North’s swoony, sweeping Farthingdale Ranch series.  This last story delivers a well-deserved HEA for the Farthingdale Ranch trail boss, Quint McKay  – a beautiful man with a bruised heart who longs for love and family but doesn’t believe he can ever achieve it.  

Critical to Quint’s journey, and the sole reason why his heart is accessible to the much younger, wealthy, and (seemingly) spoiled Ashley Harrington, is Quint’s unwavering love for Brody and Kit, who he considers his sons.  While not strictly necessary, I do recommend you at least read The Wrangler and the Orphan before reading The Trail Boss and the Brat because it lays out Brody and Kit’s story and, through it, Brody’s deep connection with Quint.  It also shows how the Quint/Brody/Kit family units forms. 

On paper, this pairing of Quint and Ashley really shouldn’t work.  Perhaps I should say on paper that does not belong to Ms. North.  In her hands, Quint and Ashley are magic.  She takes two men who are as opposite as can be and dovetails their strengths and needs thereby showing how they fit just perfectly together. They both need rescuing from emotional trauma and they are able to be that safe place for each other. 

Quint, in particular, is a fascinating character and Ms. North develops all of the facets of his personality.  We see his triumphs and his flaws, his pain and his pleasure, his love and his loss.  Perhaps most importantly, through Quint, Ms. North shows us what hope looks like in its most fragile yet enduring form.

Ms. North possesses a phenomenal ability to take a simple storyline and make it unique and special.  None of the Farthingdale Ranch stories contain complicated plots.  Instead, Ms. North gives us complex emotional journeys for indelibly created characters within accessible, plausible story arcs.  They are easy to read and even easier to love.

Then consider how she tells her stories.  Reading a Jackie North romance is like dreaming in technicolor.  It’s like she puts you on a blank canvas and then starts painting the breathtaking Farthingdale Ranch world around you.  You’re standing in the blades of grass, sweating in the barn where Ashley is shoveling out hay, climbing the rocks in the canyons, stroking the horses’ silky manes, smelling the petrichor after a hard rain, feeling the summer breeze through the screen door of Quint’s cabin, burning under the blistering sun beating down over the open arena.  Ms. North’s talent is rare, so her gorgeous love stories are truly gifts.

I highly recommend The Trail Boss and the Brat and the whole Farthingdale Ranch series.  As a side note, if you have read this series from the beginning, make sure you read Ms. North’s author’s note at the end of the book.  She discusses some fascinating aspects of the time travel paradox threaded through this whole series, stretching back to Honey from the Lion in her Love Across Time series, of which the Farthingdale Ranch series is a spin-off.  

I’m going to miss this fictional universe immensely.  Luckily, Ms. North has intimated that she has Farthingdale 2.0 plans on her mind, and she gives us a clue of what that might look like at the end of Trail Boss.  I hope you jump into this beautiful fictional universe from start to finish.  The Trail Boss and the Brat is a superb way to close it out.

🤠🐴🌳🌞💓

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon