Reviewed by Valerie 

TITLE:  Outrun the Rain

SERIES:  The Storm Boys #1

AUTHOR:  N.R. Walker

PUBLISHER:  BlueHeart Press

LENGTH:  190 pages

RELEASE DATE:  June 6, 2023

BLURB:   

Tully Larson has loved tropical storms since he was a kid and spent his summers with his dad in the wilds of Kakadu National Park. He’s happiest outdoors, a rough and ready kind of guy who loves the power of Mother Nature and chasing the thrill of electrical storms every chance he gets.

Jeremiah Overton, a fulminologist from Melbourne, chases storms for a whole different reason. Lightning has shaped his entire life and he’s driven to study it, to understand it, so heading to Kakadu in the middle of the storm season is a logical thing to do. After all, the Top End is the lightning capital of Australia.

Tully wasn’t sure how a week at his remote bunker with an academic type would pan out. And Jeremiah didn’t expect much from the storm-chasing cowboy who volunteered to take him.

But both men know all too well that when opposites attract, lightning strikes.

REVIEW:   

Outrun the Rain is the first novel in N.R. Walker’s The Storm Boys series about two men who are used to spending time alone but find electricity sparks between them when they bond under the lightning filled skies of Kakadu National Park. This book begins their lovely romance with an adventure filled plot with some danger, a touch of suspense, and plenty of storms.

Tully is a storm chaser whom we met briefly in The Storm Boys series prequel, Second Chance at First Love. He lives in Darwin and has a respectable job but his favorite pastime – the thing that feeds his soul – is spending time in the wild, living through the dangerous storms. He’s an extremely laid back, carefree man who’s always smiling. What you see is what you get with Tully. I thought he was quite the risk taker until we met Mr. Impulsive, Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is a researcher from Melbourne who travels to the Top End to study the effects of lightning on the human body. He arranges for Tully to escort him into the depths of the park only reachable with determination, fearlessness, and four wheel drive on sometimes passable roads. Outrun the rain means outrun the floods and crocodiles, but for these two men, they stay put in a rustic shelter to experience the jaw dropping storms. Jeremiah is used to working alone but begins to appreciate having someone else in the field with him, even if he thinks Tully is ridiculous, in an affectionate way.

As the days go by, these men bond over their shared interest and close proximity. Jeremiah is not a particularly well liked person among his peers – which is fine since he doesn’t like people – but he appreciates the respect he gets from Tully. He finds it so easy to be with Tully and recognizes he can be himself and trust him. It’s so easy to talk to Tully because it isn’t “real life” – he’ll never see Tully again. These men are opposites but that’s never made to be a factor in their compatibility. Their love of storms ties them together. We’ll see in the future books how they do when they return to their everyday lives across the county from each other.

Walker’s imagery is so realistic and on point. She describes Kakadu National Park in the Top End of Australia as a vast, raw wilderness so remote that few people other than Tully spend time there. It’s gritty and untouched, a place where, without careful planning and respect for mother nature and the weather, it could be deadly. The awe inspiring shared experience of that extreme danger and immersion in the weather is what cements the bond in these men. There are very few others that have experienced these highs.

I initially thought this series was going to be about different couples in the shared world of Kakadu but it turns out it’s Tully and Jeremiah’s story. I should’ve known better; Walker does some of the best same couple series (my favorite) with the likes of Red Dirt Heart, Spencer Cohen, and Missing Pieces. I like Jeremiah and Tully individually, but even more so as a couple. I look forward to further character development in the subsequent books.

This is a fantastic beginning to the series, written with Walker’s great gift for delivering lovable characters and exciting plots. The book ends on a positive note but there’s clearly more story to come. Fortunately, we only have three weeks to wait for the adventures to continue in the next installment.

Highly recommended.

RATING: 

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