Great book for my new healing/comfort shelf! Full review shortly. ( )

Great book for my new healing/comfort shelf! Full review shortly. ( )

The eleventh book in the Cattle Valley series is the classic example of why this is a serial, and it's almost impossible not to read it in the right order. Bo Lawson is a spin off character from another serial, Campus Cravings. He was Lark's first lover, and he had a quite important role in Lark's book, A Biker's Vow. In that book, Lark and Kade were considering to move in Cattle Valley, and Bo tagged along when they went to perusing the area. He liked the place and he decided to stay; in the very first scene in Cattle Valley he set his eyes on Rance, but in the following books there was no indication on what happened to them. In this perspective, you are not forced to read all the Campus Cravings books to enjoy this one, but maybe it would be better if you read at least that book, A Biker's Vow.

Bo is a friendly and handsome man, so friendly that he managed to stay friend with Lark even after their relationship ended and he married with a woman. Bo lived in a Canada 'free love' community, and why he married a woman it's not quite clear, since Bo's preferences are all for men. But in the community the marriage's bond it was not so important, it was almost like a roommate statement, if you are married, you share a room, nothing else. Bo's main characteristic in that story it was his HIV positive status, something he shared with Kade, and this allowed Kade to see that, even if positive, you can still have a normal life, with some precautions more, but still a live. The same acceptance Bo found in the community, he finds also in Cattle Valley, and when his story starts, he is in the middle of wooing Rance, trying to overcome Rance's barriers.

It's not Bo's HIV status that put a stop to their story, it's something in Rance's past; I like this taken on the story of the author, she deals with Bo's illness in a light mode, but not underestimating it; I believe that she willingly decided to not make it the turning point of the story but at the same time giving the right importance to the matter. Actually, once the reader finds out Rance's secret, compared to Bo's trouble, I had almost a reaction like, 'well, is it all? And you have a problem due to that?' and since I'm quite naughty, I also anticipated the enjoyable conclusion that Bo arrives to... I don't want to give up the story, but it's all a question of right angles ;-)

Book 11 in the series is one of those books that is nice and good, without any breaking event, but nevertheless essential to the story; it serves also to know something more about Jay, the almost androgynous new Cattle Valley's character, and about Asa, the multimillionaire gay man who decided to move in Cattle Valley, but that I still haven't quite framed.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1907010963/?tag=elimyrevandra-20