Review: Moodier than a Wyoming Winter
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 17, 2013
Ash and Oak is one hella sexy little novel. It may be for m/m, but there's no woman on earth who isn't going to start to foster a little crush while reading this.What I like about this novel:alpha male with a capital Anon-explicit sex scenesthe focus is on mental attraction over physicalit's got tons of mountains and horsesYou see, not everyone is going to enjoy a novel this saturated with equine info. But, if you grew up in the country, if your free time was spent riding horses (and mucking, and cleaning and brushing, and polishing! - Why doesn't anyone ever mention polishing a saddle and bridle?) - if you thrilled at plaiting manes and tails, and you remember everything from the morning mist to the dry heat of summer, then you will fall in love with the location of this novel and how deeply drenched in horsemanship it is.Add to that the shy cute one, and the domineering stubborn one, (aka Oak and Ash) - and you have the best of every world. Ash is the man with the fat wallet, money's not an issue, and because the relationship isn't equal on 'that step' everything becomes an issue.It's hard for me to sum up why I loved this book without boring the pants off you - but I did. I loved the cameo characters (from the housekeeper to the sister) - I even liked Ted.But let me tell you this, if a normal heterosexual man read this novel, and took a few lessons from Ash on how to thrill hormones so they're skyrocketing out of the galaxy - there'd be plenty of very happy ladies on planet earth. Man oh man, this man is dynamite!And if domineering, 'I'm in control' but I like to kick myself bruised at my stupidity after the fact because I have pride issues' makes you smile, and laugh, and swoon, and sigh... you'll love him.Oddly I didn't like Oakley Richards. I found him to be too manipulative, too pushy in an underhanded passive aggressive way. I didn't like that, no matter how gorgeous the homme-fatale is. Oak had everything to gain, and yet he was petulant and moody to a fault. He got on my nerves. But when he goes 'home' to Amy, and plans for his future, I got all teary eyed and choked up, like a Wyoming winter.It was beautiful, it was heartwarming, it was like taking a ranching holiday through the pages of a book, and I stayed up long past my bedtime 2 nights in a row because this novel is compelling and I couldn't stop reading.Loved it, and totally give it 5 stars.