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Lang Downs #2
Twenty-year-old Chris Simms is barely keeping his head above water. After losing his mother and his home, he struggles to provide for himself and his brother. When homophobes attack him, he thinks his life is over, but then he’s rescued by jackaroos from a nearby sheep station. He's as stunned to be offered a job there as he is to discover both the station owner and foreman are gay.
For Chris, Lang Downs is a dream—one that only gets better when Chris realizes the jackaroo he's crushing on, Jesse Harris, is gay and amenable to a fling. Everything goes well until Chris realizes he’s falling for Jesse a lot harder than allowed by their deal.
Jesse is a drifter who moves from station to station, never looking for anything permanent. Convinced Chris is too young and fragile for a real relationship, he sets rules to keep things casual. Watching the station owner and his foreman together makes Jesse wonder if there are benefits to settling down, but when he realizes how Chris feels about him, he panics. He and Chris will have to decide if a try for happiness is worth the risk before the end of the season tears them apart.
What a fabulous follow up to Inherit the Sky! I was excited to be traveling back down under to see how things were going at the Lang Downs ranch. After the drama of Caine and Macklin declaring themselves a couple you had wonder what would happen after things settled down.
Chase the Stars starts up just a few months later, we are heading into summer and new jackaroos need to be hired for the season. While in Yass hiring men for the season Macklin, Neil and Ian step in a save a man who is being attacked, after learning the reason for the attack Caine offers the young man and his brother a place at Lang Downs. Chris sees an opportunity to start over for he and Seth and while cautious knows he can't pass up the chance.
One of the things that Ms. Tachna does so well is create fully fleshed out characters. She doesn't rush the relationships, she lets them develop over time and that adds a realness to her stories that I appreciate. She tells a full story with interesting and necessary secondary characters that you want to know just as much about as the main couple. The land and ranch itself becomes a character in this series in the way that she describes and uses the elements in the story.
Chris is one of those people that you can't help but fall for right away. He sacrifices his needs to try and make things better for his brother. He doesn't even realize at first that he wants the home and the long term relationship until he sees it in Caine and Macklin and then he doesn't want to settle for less.
Jesse is that guy that falls in love but doesn't know it until it smacks him upside the head. I love to see those aloof, I don't need anyone but myself, men fall hard! And like most of them he tries to run but Chris isn't one to give up so easily.
Being one of those readers that is always wondering what happens next with the couples that I really fall for I was thrilled with the amount of page time that Caine and Macklin get in this book. I loved every word that I read about the two men, but also enjoyed getting to know more about some of the other jackaroos on the ranch like Neil and Kami, Patrick and Jason. And I don't know about anyone else but whenever I read one of these books I am totally picturing the ranch from the Thorn Birds in my mind.
I can't wait for the next book in the series and I hope we bring in some of the guys from the Taylor Peak ranch and really shake up the outback!
BUY LINK: Chase the Stars
RATING: 5 Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries This book was given to us by Dreamspinner Press. Many thanks.
Sounds like a hot, Aussie stle book.The men are dreamy, too bad they would not have eyes for me.
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