Friday Reads: Down South

Friday again and this week I actually read something. I picked up Down South by C.E. Kilgore a week or so ago – what girl doesn’t want to read about a post-apocalyptic cowboy??

I really liked the first half of the story. We got to see the apocalypse happen, and maybe I read the wrong kinds of books, but most often we are thrown into a world where the apocalypse already has taken place. I liked that we got to be there, I liked the characters and the way the story built, but then when the end came I felt a little cheated. There are more books in this series but they’re all stand-alones so it won’t be of Gabe and Liam and the others.

***spoiler***

I’m just bitching now, but I have to let it out. I did like the story, but those who know me know I can’t stand too sweet and this turned into way too sweet for me. You know in the college movies when the guy tells the girl he loves her and the entire audience in huge stadium get to their feet to applaud him? I turn off the TV when that happens, can’t stand it, would rather shoot myself in the foot than endure it, and I’m sad to say that there I was enjoying myself out on the ranch when suddenly the shooting myself in foot moment came. I’m not saying that to be mean, I, in fact, think it can be an asset because the average reader loves a big love declaration with a clapping audience. I, on the other hand, was hoping for the neighbours to attack…

Now don’t get me wrong, I really liked this story, and I might pick up another book or two in the series. If you like a cowboy getting his boy despite being out of electricity and working cars, this is the story for you!

books2read.com/DownSouth

Where do you want to be when the world ends?

An apocalyptic M/M Romance. Electricity is gone. Society is on its knees. The heart’s compass becomes the light in the darkness.

Gabe’s a Texas rancher who’s always kept part of himself on a separate paddock from his ranch hands and the small town of Post. When your hometown’s population is barely over five-thousand, chances are high you’re the only gay man for miles, and that coming out would do more harm than good. When the power goes out, a very lost and very far from home man named Liam stumbles onto his land. Stuck on the wrong side of the pond with no way home, Liam, a writer for a British travel magazine, struggles with culture shock. Gabe struggles to save his cattle from the apocalypse, and to ignore the attractive Liam’s obvious interest in more than friendship.

About the Heart’s Compass series:
Our heart has its own compass. It knows where we should be heading, even if the rest of us doesn’t. Through loss and love, our heart’s compass guides us through life, often to somewhere completely unexpected. When the world ends, the heart’s compass of several people has them headed in directions they may have never traveled otherwise.

Each book in the series is a stand-alone, novella-length story, but is written within the same fictional setting in which the Earth has just been struck with several massive solar flares. All modern technology has been rendered inoperable. Cars, computers, city infrastructure, phones – all gone in an instant and without warning. In the days directly following the end of the modern world, people must learn to depend on each other, and on their heart’s compass, if they hope to survive.