Laney Cairo - Bringo Springs

Ross is a city boy, working on his thesis and living with his trendy boyfriend. When his grandfather

breaks a hip and winds up in the hospital, Ross is enlisted to take over the running of his grandfather's farm. When he arrives at the farm, he finds one problem after another; everything from the bore pump no longer working, to snakes taking over in the house. After calling in for reinforcements for the bore pump, he sets out to get everything else working. Relief arrives in the form of Geoff, who is impressed with Ross' willingness to get his hands and boots dirty in order to get the work done. That's not all that impresses Geoff, and when their attraction appears mutual, Ross must decide what to do. Can this city boy find happiness in the Australian outback? Read Bringo Springs and find out.

Comment: I decided to pick this book simply by the blurb. I didn't see reviews before or anything else, I just read the blurb and had to read it because this thing of changing what you thin you must be towards something you feel good in it's appealing to my reading taste buds...and I was quite eager to get to it.

It's the story of Ross, he's living in the city when his grandfather has an accident and asks Ross to take care of his farm while he's in the hospital. The farm is in pretty bad shape and Ross can't do everything on his own so Geoff, the son of a neighbor, comes and helps him. While fixing what needs to be done in the far, the two guys also find something in the other that appeals to them and in the end Ross has a choice to make.

Overall, I'm sad this disappointed me. I really hoped for a story where the protagonists would slowly recognize the potential and the allure of the other one and that Ross would impress Geoff with his will to do any work needed to keep up the farm running. Instead, I got  story more focused on the work to be done at the farm and despite being quite the realistic writing, I found this to be lacking a bit in the romance department.

The two guys meet and they're intimate not long after, first thing I found not very romantic. I mean, I thought this would turn out to be a more slow paced romance, with them discovering good things about the other, while trying to come to terms with the fact someone is becoming important and that maybe all the work at the farm is just a way to bring them closer. What I got was a story very much focused on the details of farm work and not so much in the romance.

In fact, the romance was lacking because they jump into intimacy and sex quite fast and what really annoyed me was how Ross had a boyfriend but it took just one time with Geoff for him to call his boyfriend and end things on the phone. Then the boyfriend shows up and there's a problem and they talk and whatever. I didn't like Ross that much after this, although he seemed promising in the beginning.

Eventually Ross' grandfather returns and is quite happy that Ross likes Geoff and they're together. We have an idea of what the future is going to be like, but honestly, I didn't feel that happy with the story.
I think this is one of those cases where the blurb is more promising and interesting that the story itself. I don't know if it's the author's style or if its just this story, but so far I'm not impressed. I'm still hoping for better so I think I'll read another one one day just to have something else to compare the style with this one...but right now, my hopes aren't high.

In the end, disappointment, a bit of a let down because the romance was almost non existing and not as special or "worked on" as I imagined it would be and the writing got boring at some point as well. In fact, not much to give it credit, but I admit there's a strange appeal to it, the execution was the thing really lacking.
Grade: 5/10