Reviewed by Ro

TITLE:  Easton

SERIES: Swift Brothers #2

AUTHOR: Riley Hart

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 245 pages

RELEASE DATE: October 10, 2024

BLURB:

Easton
I’m the youngest Swift brother. The one who’s always in trouble and can’t get his life together. I wouldn’t know where to start, and ever since my twin died, I can’t bring myself to care. After my last “situation,” Dad washed his hands of me. And though my brothers should’ve done the same, they stood up for me, fracturing their relationship with him too. He’s a terrible father to all of us, but considering we’re just figuring out how to build a relationship, I don’t want them to lose him because of me.

Officer Archer Thorn won’t stop coming around either. After every screwup, every bad day, Archer’s there to offer a hand. Before I know it, we’re going to dog parks, sharing meals, and Archer seems at home hanging at my place. When he touches me, fills me, all the noise in my head goes quiet. He makes me want more, but he doesn’t know how much that terrifies me, how much I worry that getting better means breaking a promise I made years ago.

Each moment with Archer shows me how good a man he is. For the first time, I actually want to face my trauma and get over my past. Archer makes me see there’s beauty in the world and, more importantly, he makes me want some of it for myself…that is, if I don’t ruin Archer Thorn first.

* Easton is a small-town, hurt/comfort romance full of heart, heat, a touch-starved MC, and brothers learning how to have a relationship with each other. It deals with themes of grief, death of a parent and a sibling, and mental-health struggles.

REVIEW:

Easton is the youngest of the Swift brothers and had a twin sister, Ella, who died by drowning. Since her death, he really doesn’t care about much and he can’t seem to get his life in order. But again, when you don’t care, it’s hard to do.

Easton will break your heart. Ella died when they were nine, and he has blamed himself his whole life for her death. Survivor’s guilt is raging in this poor man. His brothers, Morgan and Rhett, try their best to help him but he pushes them away. He knows his father hates him so assumes that either the brothers hate him as well or else they are doing daddy’s work, helping Easton so that no one gets embarrassed. He’s wrong, of course, his brothers care a lot. They don’t know that he “talks” to Ella, both in his mind and as if she is sitting next to him. There is a lot of baggage between the brothers. There was bad history between Rhett and Morgan (working towards closure on that in Morgan’s book), there was Gregory, the father, who was absentee, verbally abusive and constantly pitting the brothers against each other, and then there are some mental health issues happening. Easton is in so much pain, it’s scary.

For his part, Officer Archer also has loss in his past – his best friend and cousin, Travis, died at 18, and when Archer misses him, which is often, he goes camping with friends.  Here he meets up with Eason, who he knows by sight but doesn’t really know, who is having a breakdown in the woods, as it is the anniversary of Ella’s death. Archer stops him from hurting himself (punching a tree) and something draws Archer to Easton. Maybe because they both have survivor’s guilt, but they understand each other a little bit. Of course, Easton is absolutely going to push Archer away. Luckily for him, Archer is made of sturdier stock than that.

This starts a pattern where Easton gets drunk or gets into fights or in trouble and only calms down when Archer is the one to get him. This goes on for a two years, even when Archer isn’t on duty. “….but it’s gotten so routine, that when he’s at the bar, they’ll just call me instead of the department, otherwise he’d get arrested.  And I always go.” This goes on status quo. “I’m the friend he won’t allow himself to believe he has, the person he finds a way to go to, though neither of us understands it.”

Easton has, in his mind, no one. “Animals and my dead sister are the only ones with whom I feel comfortable speaking freely.” It isn’t until Easton adopts a disabled dog, a dog Archer was going to adopt for his niece, that the two really start to talk as they watch Meadow, the niece, play with the dogs in the park. We get to see Easton very slowly begin to think Archer might actually want him as a person, a friend.

There is a moment at their first dinner together when Archer puts a stop to something, and Easton feels rejected. I felt for Easton because tied up with his incredible self-loathing, Archer doesn’t explain why he acted that way, and to be honest, I was a little confused as well. I kept thinking, AT LEAST SAY SOMETHING! Archer ends up telling Cass (his BFF) his reasons, and it’s only then that Archer has the AHA! moment. “Holy shit. Why hadn’t I thought of it that way? Easton saw that as rejection. He put himself out there, and to him, I didn’t want him.” Gotta tell you, Archer, I also saw it as a big ol rejection until days later when you explained yourself to Cass! For someone so smart, Archer has oblivious moments.

There’s a lot of back and forth, some mixed messages and everything you would expect from someone with as much baggage as Easton and where there is a potential for an unequal power dynamic. This is not my typical happy camper story, there’s pain and sadness here that made sense. It was a little hard for me at times, because I am such a happiness chaser, but it was well worth it. I read the book in one afternoon, continually saying, one more chapter.

There are a lot of teasers here for Rhett’s story, which promises to be a good one. His moment in this book when he finally stands up to his loathsome father defending his brother? Perfection and way past time. I love these brothers, as imperfect as they are. This series is not a “brothers against the world” in the typical way because there is so much baggage. But then again, it is just that kind of family. Here’s hoping all the HEAs and the brothers truly stay together forever.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

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