Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Sunset
SERIES: Bonfires
AUTHOR: Amy Lane
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 374 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 27, 2024
BLURB:
Larx and Aaron have faced a lot together—small-town prejudice, work injuries, and pregnant daughters. But finally two of their teenagers have graduated and Larx is making moves to lessen his workload in anticipation of Aaron being elected sheriff in the fall. Maybe, just maybe, they can start planning the wedding they’ve longed to have.
Then a student goes missing and Aaron’s mentor takes a bullet during the search. Larx and Aaron backburner their plans and jump into what they do best—taking care of their people.
They don’t expect to be the ones who end up in danger.
While Larx and Aaron struggle to get out of their perilous situation, their family is galvanized into action. Just like Larx and Aaron’s relationship, their rescue is going to take hard work, ingenuity, and a solid sense of humor, but the people whose lives they’ve touched are up for the job. Nobody will rest until Larx and Aaron are safe and sound—and ready to ride off into the sunset toward the beginning of the rest of their lives.
REVIEW:
Whew boy! If you thought the previous books were a roller coaster of emotions, well buckle up. This one will knock the breath out of you. This book is NOT a standalone you really need to read in order.
Aaron and Larx are celebrating Kirby and Kellan’s graduation, when an angry father shows up looking for his troublemaker kid. Billy MacDonald has been a problem and a thorn in both of their sides for a long time but particularly since they’ve gotten together. He’s a bigot and a racist and just a mean SOB. His son, Curtis has been spiraling all year – and he’s not graduating clearly. Letters have been sent and ignored. Turns out Curtis has been missing for days and nobody was aware. Curtis has clearly been tweaking and now everybody’s worried. But first there is a graduation party to thrown and supervise.
Aaron’s boss, the current Sherriff Mills shows at the party and fills Larx and Arron in on the plans to try to find Curtis at a known drug house. While Aaron and Larx finally get some alone time, well things go VERY sideways at this raid. And people are Mills is shot. The other deputy who is going to run for Sherriff is clearly keeping Aaron away and totally mismanaging everything. But why? Well Aaron has a pretty good idea. Oh, and they didn’t find Curtis MacDonald. Luckily Sacramento SWAT and officers are available to help once Aaron is made aware and takes charge. When he and Tad Hawkins, a Sacramento detective go back to the scene to try to locate Curtis, well they end up in a world of hurt. Oh and somebody else is back and shooting at them!
I really don’t want to spoil this long and winding story, but it’s a doozy! Larx and Aaron and their kids and the whole community have to step up and help solve the problem – which doesn’t just involve law enforcement. They need physics and geologists and heavy machinery and lots of specialty folks to help save them. After all they have a wedding to FINALLY plan. They have a grandchild who is going to arrive imminently. They have young men to send out into the world. They have kick-ass daughters to love. Oh, and they have a community to continue to keep safe. And maybe more than one group so kids to take in and make feel safe.
I absolutely loved this story. It puts the reader through the Amy Lane paces. Angst and love and a hard won HEA of course were on order, but GEEZ there are a lot of crazy moments to get there. I was so happy to see Larx and Aaron get to a good place here. I’m really interested to see what happens next and there are lots of opportunities for either new stories or spin-off stories based on the events of this book and some newly introduced characters 🙂 I love this quirky town and all it’s crazy inhabitants and I would be happy to read about this family forever 🙂
RATING: 
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