Sunset Bonfires #3
Gay Romance, small Town Romance, Police Romance
Dreamspinner Press
Feb 27,2024
Kindle
308
Amazon
Larx and Aaron have faced a lot together—small-town prejudice, work injuries, and pregnant daughters. But finally two of their teenagers have graduated and Larx is making moves to lessen his workload in anticipation of Aaron being elected sheriff in the fall. Maybe, just maybe, they can start planning the wedding they’ve longed to have.
Then a student goes missing and Aaron’s mentor takes a bullet during the search. Larx and Aaron backburner their plans and jump into what they do best—taking care of their people.
They don’t expect to be the ones who end up in danger.
While Larx and Aaron struggle to get out of their perilous situation, their family is galvanized into action. Just like Larx and Aaron’s relationship, their rescue is going to take hard work, ingenuity, and a solid sense of humor, but the people whose lives they’ve touched are up for the job. Nobody will rest until Larx and Aaron are safe and sound—and ready to ride off into the sunset toward the beginning of the rest of their lives.
Review by Linda Tonis
Member of the Paranormal romance Guild Review Team
This is the third book in this series but the only one I have read. Saying that the author was able to keep me apprised of what happened previously so that I was not lost in the story, a story of two men who find love in middle age and who discover a love different from the ones they had. Both men married, Larx to a horrible woman and mother and Aaron to a wonderful loving woman who died in a car accident.
Both men raised their children alone and now they are grown. Aaron is a deputy sheriff and Larx is the high school principal. When the two men fell in love and came out with their relationship all their kids accepted them, except for one of Aaron’s daughters, and of course, a small town that had its share of bigots. If you have read the first two books, then I am sure you are better informed about the two families than I am.
Now with plans to marry and Larx’s daughter Olivia pregnant they will become stepfathers and grandfathers; life is going to be very full. Now it is graduation day, a happy time for most but a day that would put Larx and Aaron in danger. Billy MacDonald shows up angry at not seeing his son at graduation and when he is told that his son, Curtis was not invited to graduation he began his usual verbal abuse of faggot, no surprise since very one is aware of his bigotry and racism.
A party thrown by Larx and Aaron with a bunch of their kid’s friends and other seniors is turning into a huge success until Aaron receives news that Curtis is missing and plans to invade a house suspected of being a drug hangout would mar what was proving to be a happy time.
Larx tried to help Curtis but with his parents’ lack of concern it was a losing battle. Aaron will be running for sheriff since his boss is preparing to resign and when the drug house was surrounded, and the sheriff was shot it would be the beginning of a mystery that would just get more and more sordid.
Percy Hardesty another deputy and the one running against Aaron on a platform against gays fails to inform Aaron of what happened, and that the sheriff was in the hospital Aaron who was put in charge if the sheriff was not available suspends Percy taking away his gun and badge. Aaron suspects that the sheriff was shot by Percy but needs to have proof.
While everyone is waiting for news on the sheriff’s condition, and the kids that were arrested when the team entered the drug house Aaron has his hands full. Things get worse when the deputy watching over the drugged kids is hit over the head and all the kids are let loose, a world of anger and concern falls on Aaron. The search for a missing boy would lead to a world of hurt. Aaron returns to the drug house to get more information when he and a deputy are shot at. In their attempt at hiding, they manage to fall down the back of the house and land in an area where they are trapped, no way up or down since the cliff is unstable. But the only plus is that they find themselves next to Curtis who is drugged out of his mind, hurt and going into the beginning of withdrawal.
What follows is nonstop suspense and thanks to Curtis a list of suspects. One of the suspects is Curtis’ own father, another case of parental abuse and neglect. I didn’t get to read the first two books, but I am very happy to have been there for the end.