This Red Rock

by Louise Blaydon

When an open life in San Diego beckoned, Alex Arzano left the oppressive Southwest town of his childhood without a second thought—until now. Working on his Uncle Frank’s New Mexico ranch isn’t Alex’s first choice of ways to spend the summer, but it turns out not to be as bad as he’d the scenery is beautiful... and not just the landscape, either. Frank has put ranch hand Oro Torres in charge of Alex’s training, and everything about Oro, from his gorgeous accent and muscled forearms to the way he handles a horse, is completely captivating. Alex is quicker to learn than Oro expects, and the tension between them rises just as fast. Finally, close quarters and exhilaration push them to take that last step—and after that, there’s no turning back.

Genres: M M Romance, Contemporary, Westerns, Romance

44 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 19, 2011

About the author

Louise Blaydon is a writer, specialising primarily in the m/m romance genre. Her interests are esoteric and changeable, and range from linguistic archaeology to modernist poetry; long walks in the cold to lazy drunken evenings; kicking up leaves to sleeping curled up around the cat. Louise has been writing for as long as she can remember, and penned her first half-formed m/m story at the age of eight. Now in her late twenties, she has meandered somewhat, geographically, from her point of origin, and consequently nurses a love of stories of exile, and of landscapes described like lovers.

Louise has written journalistically in the past, but now writes mainly prose fiction. If the occasional poem threatens the calm of her existence, she refuses to be blamed for it.

Reviews

[Jess Candela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it, but think it was a little short for real devleopment. I found myself thinking a time or two that his knowledge of Oro was surprisingly extensive and certain given just a few days' acquaintence, but then it became clear at the end he was telling the story looking back from some point in the future. I think I might have liked it better to just be in the here-and-now, but if it was a retrospective I'd rather that had been clearer from the beginning.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sweet short.

[Melissa F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a bad habit of putting off reading stories told in first person perspective. Mostly, I tend to have a lot of trouble getting into them. So this has been on my to-read shelf for an amount of time I'm ashamed to admit to, given how much I love the author.

And wow. WOW. I really wish I hadn't put it off for so long, because now that I've finally read it, I'm completely in love with everything this story chooses to be. In fact, the only reason I'm not giving it five full stars is because it's just not long enough. I want to know everything about these characters. I want to know so much more about the two months they had together, and about how they deal with their separation, and about their future. 50 pages is just not enough when you have two characters as wonderful as Alex and Oro.

Beautiful, beautiful story, and highly recommended!

[Stacey Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alex spends a summer on his college break working on his uncle's farm. They're not sure he's cut out for the work, but he surprises them all with how well he does. His uncle asks Oro to show him the ropes and a relationship slowly blooms between the two. Alex returns to school with something to look forward to.

It has some pretty hot scenes between the two. There's not a great deal of character development but being a short story, that's not really possible so that wasn't an issue for me. The characters are likeable and it's nice summer romance. If we could give half stars, I'd say it's more a 3.5 for me

[Penny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A first romance.

[Kiki · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

very well written, but the characters and the story just didn't capture my interest...