Cattle Valley Vol. 2

Cattle Valley #3-4

by Carol Lynne

"Two of Cattle Valley's largest residents are about to fall, and fall hard."

Sweet Topping
Wheelchair-bound, Kyle Brynn loves his home above the bakery he owns and runs. Darshawn 'Gill' Gilling quit professional football at the height of his career without a word to the press as to why. Now settled in Cattle Valley, Gill's happy running his garage and gas station. Most folks in town tend to be a little awestruck when Gill comes around, but if he wanted fans he'd have stayed in football. What he really wants is that cute little baker down the street.

Rough Ride
For rancher Ezra James, life is pretty simple. He wakes before dawn and spends his day working with the cattle he loves. For twenty years, the EZ Does It ranch has been enough to drown out his loneliness.Palmer Wynfield caught Ezra's eye the first time the rancher stepped foot in the store. Though Ezra knew his large size intimidated others, his little self-confidence was shattered when Palmer backed away in apparent fear. An early morning phone call changes his life. Though the line is scratchy, Ezra definitely hears the words he's been waiting to hear from Wyn for years. ""I need you.""

Genres: M M Romance, Romance, Erotica

185 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2008

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

erotic & gay romances

Reviews

[Elisa Rolle]

Sweet Topping (Cattle Valley) by Carol Lynne

Sometimes when Carol Lynne decides to talk about a delicate matter, she does it with so much details that, if not be for her ability to write romance, it could be almost like read a clinical papers. And instead reading this book, I was involved by the characters and not distracted by the details.

Kyle is the young baker of Cattle Valley. He is from a wealthy family but he has left his comfort life after a bad accident which has left him tetraplegic. Even if Gill has proved in every way his interest in Kyle, he is still reluctant to start a relationship with the man, cause he seems not to be able to have a normal sexual life and his day-to-day needs are so embarassing for him, he has no desire to share them with another man.

But Gill is very stubborn and he will not let go until he has not conviced Kyle to give him a chance.

Even if Kyle should be the protagonist of the story, and usually I have a soft spot for the bottom, I think that Gill steals a bit the scene this time. Gill is a big Afro American man, with a big heart, and he is very tender and caring. He is almost too good to be true.

Only one question remains in my mind... why the title, Sweet Topping? Maybe cause Gill is a sweet man?

Rough Ride (Cattle Valley 4) by Carol Lynne

Fourth episode in the Cattle Valley gay soap opera. Cattle Valley is the gay fantasyland for all the men searching a soul mate of the same sex (techinically also for women, but Carol voted herself to the manlove romance).

Since the first episode we meet Wyn, the high-maintenance store owner who is just out of an abusive relationship with the former minister of Cattle Valley. Wyn is a little skittish, being a small man; and he is not a young stud, he borders to forty or even a little more. And since the first episode we know that something is going on with Ezra, the big ranch owner. Ezra is almost a giant, 6 feet and 11 inches tall with a unkept bears that makes him the best next thing to a real bear. No one would think that Wyn and Ezra could be a couple, but the two of them seem unable to stay far from the other and when they are near to each other, they seem unable to not argue.

But when Wyn needs to go back home, in his omophobic home town, and the welcome home kid party is not a good one, Ezra like a knight in shining armour, comes to rescue. From this moment on, Wyn and Ezra are a steady couple, but back in Cattle Valley not all the townfolks are happy of this new development.

This episode is a nice one. Not too much drama, two nice characters and a little sexy story. You know from the start that Ezra and Wyn will be a couple, we were waiting three books for this to happen, and so we are ready to be plunged into the real story without much notice.

As always we have also the chance to know the future characters in the series: Matt and the doctors, Richard, also an Olynpic Gold Medal and probably Smokey and Neil. In the past we met also the chef of the only restaurant of Cattle Valley, but in this episode he doesn't make an appereance. So who will be the next? the soap opera continues...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1906590346/?...

[Charly · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a bit of realism in the CV books, but not much

Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.

Rating: 7/10

PROS:
- It’s not just characters that overlap from one story to the next in this series. Events also overlap, so you get to see certain major happenings (weddings, first kisses, etc.) from multiple characters’ perspectives: something will happen at the end of one novella and then the next novella will start just before that event takes place.
- The characters from earlier novellas in the series get more fleshed out the more you see of them in later stories. I find the trio from the first CV story--Ryan, Rio, and Nate--to be more endearing now than I did immediately after finishing their own story.
- These two stories have some of the sweetest moments I’ve read so far from Lynne--and I think the reason is that I was already familiar with all of the characters before I started reading this volume. Especially in the first novella: there are some incredibly touching scenes involving Kyle and Gill.
- The characters in these Cattle Valley novellas are all pretty close to perfect, and their relationships progress very quickly: one chapter the guys are into each other but positive that nothing will ever come from it, and the next chapter, they’re admitting (to themselves, at least) that they’re in love. The upside to this is that there’s a lot of “Happy Ending” bang for your buck… (see cons below also)

CONS:
- …The downside is that all of the romances come across as rushed and a bit shallow.
- There are some editing issues that didn’t drive me CRAZY, per se, but that irked me throughout: one of them is Lynne’s tendency to use question marks at the end of sentences that aren’t questions (“Kyle wasn’t sure whether to be touched or appalled?”), and the other is that in most farming/ranching communities, misspelling “John Deere” (it’s “Deer” in the book) is practically sacrilege.
- One of the 4 main characters in this volume starts out as less-than-perfect physically, and the descriptions of some of his struggles are lovely and real (and result in some incredibly touching scenes). But the utopianness (utopianity?...whatever) of the story’s world intrudes, and by the end, that character isn’t “less-than-perfect” anymore; he’s perfect. That bothered me.

Overall comments: The Cattle Valley stories do little else besides create a fun little world with almost no bigotry and lots of single people who get paired (or tripled) off one couple (or threesome) at a time. Realistic? Not at all. Fun? Yes.

[Saphirablue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, pretty entertaining but sometimes a bit cheesy and saccherine for me. :/

I enjoyed the first story more than the second one because it simply pushes some of my buttons but in the second books a few characters were introduced/named that make me very curious about them.

I like how the characters from the first book pop up from time to time and still make me smile a lot. :)

[Erotic Horizon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cattle Valley (volume 2) by Carol Lynne (2008)

[Savannah Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful