Mini Review: Drawing the Devil by Jon Keys
Publisher: Samhain
Publish Date: February 3, 2015
Reviewed by: Heller
How I got this book: E-Arc from Publisher
A heart can live a lifetime in eight seconds.
Ever since his father caught him with another boy and threw him out at the tender age of sixteen, Dustin Lewis has been fighting his way up the national bull-riding rankings. He’s on the brink of qualifying for the National Finals when he draws Diablo, a notoriously rank bull—and the ride goes bad.
When bullfighter Shane Rees frees Dustin from the rigging of the same bull that nearly destroyed his face, he comes dangerously close to dropping his guard. Shane knows the potential consequences of being gay in a sport loaded with testosterone-overdosed cowboys, and the resulting scars of mind and body have left him with little self-worth.
Their near-death-by-bull first meeting sparks an attraction that awakens every last one of their personal demons. Yet as the National Finals draws closer, so do they. But they’ll have to overcome emotional highs, near-tragic lows, and bone-crushing danger before love can bust out of the chute.
Warning: Contains man-on-man boot knocking, rawhide and raw emotions, badass cowboys and even badder-ass bulls. This ain’t your old man’s rodeo.
I didn’t like this book much the first time I read it. My opinion of it has softened after a second go around though. Kind of a rough and tumble read with a crude edge kinda like the cowboys it’s about.
Shane’s attitude was hard to take for a long period of time. He has poor self esteem because of his scars and no matter the evidence to the contrary he couldn’t really accept when Dustin told him how attractive he was and that weared after a while, same for Dustin has his attitude about his ADD. There’s only so much woe is me I can handle before it gets old. Moving beyond that I enjoyed the men together and the rodeo backdrop.
Dustin was spazzy and cute and I liked his master plan but some of his opinions on bottoming were odd. I’m glad that didn’t play out longer than it did. Shane was kind and honorable and I enjoyed his interactions with his family.
I liked that we got alternating POV’s here. It really helped balanced things out for me and I needed to see where the guys were in their thoughts about each other. I don’t think I would have liked it as much if it had been one sided.
I’m kind of curious about a secondary couple that showed up part way through the read, Darrin and Mitch, I investigated and saw that they have their own book, Wrangler Butts. I’ll be reading that one because their story interested me.
I’m giving Drawing the Devil a C