This is the bonus of having books recommended to you by someone else, as I had absolutely no preconceived ideas about this book and therefore was completely and pleasantly surprised when I started really enjoying it! This is as far away as you can get from contemporary mm fiction; you hit the ground running with this m/m western, the opening chapters landing you in a chase scene between our two protagonists; Leon, the outlaw, has an earthy, ‘take me as I am’ sensuality about him and Thomas is the dry, dominant bounty hunter, seeking payment for Leon’s head.

I was surprised by the heat that the early love scenes generated, as normally this aggressive type of sex turns me off, but it was something to do with the raw honesty they both approached each other with, firing wise cracks back and forth, sensing and meeting the others’ needs. The aggression in a way was two sided, with the more submissive Leon still drawing Thomas to him like a moth to a flame; although he enjoyed Thomas’s dominant nature, his own character wasn’t swallowed up in the process. The only part about this side of their relationship that annoyed me was when they progressed to the typical need of the dominant to be called ‘sir’, to be expected in a D/s relationship I guess, but something I thought they could have done without in this western context.

I ended up giving this 3 and a half stars, mainly as I felt the book had a lot more story to tell but stopped short. The pace that was set early in the book could have been taken so much further and led to a longer telling of our character’s love for each other.