This was a simple beautiful story, delivering exactly what I was looking for when I first read the blurb. 19-year old city boy feeling out of place in his family and life winds up on a farm where he falls in love with rugged and harsh owner, Chase. If you like cowboys at all or slow-paced but passionate, hot, and all-consuming romances, you will find something to love about this. Well-written enough, well-characterized, and with moments of real grief (though I didn't shed any tears!), anger, and frustration.
Chase is a difficult character to warm up to, very brooding and taciturn initially. Once you learn his back-story, comprehend exactly all that he has lost, you will begin to understand why he is the way he is. He's lived his whole life in solitude on the farm. That doesn't mean you won't find yourself still raging against his treatment of Elijah and his retreats into silences or verbal lashing outs, but it makes sense, his actions are always easy to see through. Even still, you can't help but go along with wide-eyed Elijah in his hero-worship of Chase. Yes, he was too forgiving of Chase sometimes, ready to endure and try to explain away the gruff treatments, but his unabashed adoration of Chase does make it easier to sympathize and then rejoice with him. And he did have his small moments of anger and defiance that were bordering on heartbreaking to see. Chase at least is always aware of Elijah's absolute regard for him and he shows he's ready to make sacrifices to make the sometimes painful but right choices for Elijah.
I did think the story started to focus too much on the sex (which was still hot and written well at least) towards the later part of the relationship. But again, I'm likely the only person who would find any issues with this aspect. :) Also, I found their words to each other upon reunion were a little corny-just your perfect movie ending words. But I couldn't help but roll my eyes. So you can say it took me out of the moment. But again, that's just my own cynical side come out to play, also probably because I read the ending later. The entire story revolves solely around Chase and Elijah (although other characters have left their shadows on both of them) so I recommend if you have the time to immerse yourself for awhile. If the blurb sounds like your kind of story, you won't be disappointed.
