Rating: 3.5 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novella
Uri doesn’t know exactly what drew him to the rodeo. Maybe it’s the noise and the people. Maybe it’s the junk food, and maybe he simply wanted to stretch his legs after so long of riding his bike across the country. What doesn’t expect is for the Midnight Rodeo to be exactly where he needs to be.
Thackery’s angel abandoned him. It’s not just that his lover was wonderful, amazing, and held both his heart and his soul, but his lover, Uriel, was an actual angel, with wings and powers and a goodness so bright it shone. When Uriel comes waltzing back into Thackery’s life, claiming he has no memory of the rodeo, of their friends, of Thackery, it feels like a lie. After all, what power in the world could rip an angel’s wings away? But one look into those beloved eyes, one caress of a pale hand against his horns, and Thackery no longer cares. Uri is back, and come heaven or come hell, no one is taking him away again.
There are a lot of secondary and background characters in this book, pairings and partners and the feel of a world well lived in, albeit a world with a kitchen sink approach to world building, as there are unicorns and brownies, shifters, angels and demons, elementals, and just about everything else. And yet it feels surprisingly shallow. It also feels more like a drawn out epilogue, reuniting two characters who don’t need much more than a smile between them — memory or not — before they’re falling into bed. Perhaps because this is the twelfth book in the Midnight Rodeo collection and it’s expected that you’ve already read the others, gotten to know the characters and the rodeo.
As a standalone, it doesn’t quite hold up. The sex scenes, as are to be expected in a BA Tortuga book, are well done and the characters have a natural rapport with one another. If you’re a fan of the series, or have already read the other books, this is a pleasant entry with a happily ever after and some interesting uses of horns. If, however, you aren’t already familiar with the Rodeo, you might want to look for earlier books.
