Published by Smashwords Edition Publication Date: March 8th 2016
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Trace has had a run of bad luck. He lost his job, his boyfriend of two years was cheating on him, and his apartment building burned right to the ground with all his worldly possessions.
So Trace heads for the ranch owned by his aunt Lois. But before he arrives, Lois is in a terrible car accident that nearly takes her life, and Trace finds himself in charge of the ranch kitchen. Sounds simple enough and it's the least he can do for his recuperating aunt.
Then Sawyer happens.
Sawyer is his aunt's sexy straight ranch manager. Meeting the man should have been okay, except it was in the middle of his aunt's kitchen at five in the morning and Trace was nearly naked. Then the next day Trace proceeded to set his aunt's house on fire and the brooding Sawyer comes to the rescue.
Not to mention Aunt Lois’s “accident” was actually attempted murder and it seems those same people want Trace dead, too.
Looks like Trace’s luck followed him.
How can Trace figure out who's trying to kill him AND keep Sawyer from finding out he's hot for the cowboy?
He probably can’t. But he’s going to try.
Cocktails and Books received this book for free from Manic Readers in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect our opinion of the book or the content of our review.
Poor Trace. He’s lost his job, his boyfriend is cheating on him, and to top it all off, his apartment building burns down with pretty much every worldly possession he has. With his parents gone, and no real ties, he heads down to his Aunt Lois’ ranch. When he gets there, he finds out that she’s been in a nasty car accident, and will be spending quite a lot of time in the hospital. She asks him to stay and help out at the ranch. With his MBA, he can take care of the books. That will leave Sawyer, the foreman of the ranch, to take care of the day to day business with the animals and such.
Ahhh, Sawyer. Handsome, dreamy Sawyer. Trace takes one look at him, and he’s tongue tied. He wants to be careful, though. He’s gay, and he doesn’t think Sawyer is, so he keeps his sexuality a secret. Sawyer seems gruff at first, but he warms up to the hilariously clumsy Trace. He’s also very protective of him. There are some very bad people after Trace and his aunt, and Sawyer is determined to take care of both of them and the ranch.
I liked this story just fine. The plot was good, the characters sweet and sexy, and there was a mystery going on that I didn’t figure out until a few pages before the big reveal. Once they get together, Trace and Sawyer were adorable and VERY hot. The sex scenes were great. I have to give you all a trigger warning. These even men who are after Sawyer do terrible things with him when they attack. They are violently anti gay, and they yank his pants down/off several times, threatening to sever his penis, and even marking the tip of it with an “X” in red marker, symbolizing where the will slice him. It left me with a sick feeling in my stomach and a pain in my heart. These scenes don’t make this a BAD book. The author is merely showing how genuinely horrible these people are and the extent they’ll go to get what they want. I imagine that there are some readers who won’t be able to handle this, though, so I wanted to throw that in.
This is the first book I’ve read from Hurri Cosmo, and by looking at Amazon, I see there are a few more titles that I could be interested in. All in all, I can give “Then Sawyer Happened” a positive recommendation, especially of you love alpha protective cowboys who love with all their hearts.
