Release Day Review: Lucky Break by A.M. Arthur

21 October of 2019 by ButtonsMom2003

Reviewer's Rating: 5

5.0Overall score

I loved this new addition to the series.

Lucky Break By A.M. Arthur

Genre: Contemporary Western Romance, GLBTQ, MM

Released: October 21, 2019

Publisher: Carina Press

Series: Clean Slate Ranch, Book 4

Synopsis

Welcome to Clean Slate Ranch: home of tight jeans, cowboy boots and rough trails. For some men, it’s a fantasy come true.

Shawn Matthews never imagined he’d be living out of his car, trying to make ends meet, but life doesn’t always go your way—he knows that better than most. When an accident leaves the Clean Slate Ranch shorthanded, Shawn is enlisted to help cook and finds himself bunked next to the sexiest cowboy he’s ever laid eyes on.

The first time Robin Butler spots the new chef, he thinks he’s seeing an actual ghost. Shawn is the spitting image of his late husband, and it spooks the hell out of him. The former rodeo-star-turned-ranch-hand does his best to avoid the soft-spoken cook—except it’s kind of tough when the man makes the best damn grub this side of the Mississippi and has a boy-next-door charm that’s impossible to resist.

Even though the tension between them practically sizzles, Shawn doesn’t do hookups and Robin isn’t ready for a new relationship. Besides, Robin can tell Shawn’s been hurt and deserves a partner who isn’t saddled with a tragic past. But chemistry doesn’t lie. Maybe finding each other—and a second chance at love—is the lucky break they both need.

One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

Review

Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003

I loved this new addition to the series.

Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve visited the Clean Slate Ranch, just over a year since the last book was released. This is a series that I have really loved and enjoyed and Lucky Break didn’t change that one bit.

This was a pretty emotional story and I shed tears several times while reading it. Lucky Break is book 4 in the Clean Slate Ranch series but can be read as a standalone. For full enjoyment of the characters, though, I recommend reading at least book three, Saddle Up because it introduced Shawn, one of the two MCs (main characters) in Lucky Break.

Shawn loves his job as sous chef at the saloon in Bentley Ghost Town. When the town shuts down for the holidays, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. No one knows that he’s been living out of his car for the past two years. And no one knows the other secret he’s kept about why he left his home with his grandparents.

Robin’s life was literally saved by the owner of Clean Slate Ranch and he will be forever grateful. When he first sees Shawn on a horse Deja vu hits him and he thinks he’s seen the ghost of his dead husband. We don’t find out all of what happened to his husband until quite late in the book.

So, both of these men are keeping secrets from each other, and from their friends. As the story goes along the secrets are revealed to readers bit by bit. As I said above, this story contains a lot of information that brought on the tears but I didn’t feel like it was unbearably angsty.

Lucky Break is more of a slow-burn romance than the other books in this series. For most of the story the heat level is fairly mild but the love between Robin and Shawn comes through. They both have insecurities to work through that impact their relationship but they do get resolved.

Lucky Break is ultimately a great romance. It’s “part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!”

When I got to the end of the book, I was happy to learn that there will be at least one more book in this series, Hard Ride, coming in early 2020. As I said in my review of book three, I wouldn’t mind visiting Clean Slate Ranch again, and again, and again. 😊

♥♥♥♥♥

O Factor: Spicy

Clean Slate Ranch Series

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About Author

A.M. Arthur

A.M. Arthur was born and raised in the same kind of small town that she likes to write about, a stone’s throw from both beach resorts and generational farmland. She’s been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop. She credits an early fascination with male friendships (bromance hadn’t been coined yet back then) with her later discovery of and subsequent love affair with m/m romance stories. A.M. Arthur’s work is available from Carina Press, Dreamspinner Press, SMP Swerve, and Briggs-King Books.

When not exorcising the voices in her head, she toils away in a retail job that tests her patience and gives her lots of story fodder. She can also be found in her kitchen, pretending she’s an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments.

Author Links

2019 5 Stars A. M. Arthur ButtonsMom2003 Carina Press Clean Slate Ranch Contemporary GLBTQ Lucky Break MM October 2019 Review Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003 Romance Series Single-Title Spicy Western