REVIEW: 'My Cowboy Freedom' by Z.A. Maxfield
Title: My Cowboy Freedom
Series: My Cowboy, Book 5
Author: Z.A. Maxfield
Published: November 15, 2016
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Genre: Contemporary Romance; Erotic Romance
Length: 289 pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; Disability; Religion/Faith; Western/Cowboys; HEA
About My Cowboy Freedom
The author of My Cowboy Promises and My Cowboy Homecoming returns once again to the Rocking C Ranch...
After doing time, Skyler is used to fighting for everything he wants, and what he wants most is a job at the Rocking C. But Sky's boss Sterling Chandler is a vocal homophobe and his men don’t necessarily trust an ex-con. Sky plans to mind his own business and put his past behind him; hopefully, the men he works with will do the same. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t like a friend—especially one like shy giant Rock Evans.
But Rock has health problems, which come with expensive bills, and a hyper-protective family that won’t hesitate to intervene if Sky gets too close. He can either fall in line with his family’s beliefs, or lose what little independence he has. Both Rock and Skyler are about to learn that there’s more than one kind of prison in My Cowboy Freedom…
5 HEARTS
REVIEW:
In My Cowboy Freedom, (book five in the My Cowboy series, a standalone novel) Z.A. Maxfield employs exquisite sensitivity and humanity exploring the psyches of people who claim they “love” their homosexual "sinner."
Sky, arrives at Rocking C Ranch, paroled after eight years for killing his abusive step-father. He wants to let go of the suspicion and manipulation required to survive prison. Sky's dad once worked the ranch, teaching him to love the hard, simple chores of "cowboying."
Rock's professional football future was cut short by a freak lightning strike that left him disabled. Readers soon learn his ultra-conservative family sent him to Rocking C to “work away his gay”. Rock is lonely, tired of the kid gloves treatment, and far more mature than others realize.
Chandler, Rocking C's owner, is a homophobe. His daughter knowingly defied him, marrying a gay man to help raise her illegitimate child.
With Sky on parole, Rock determined to be "friends," and Chandler ready to explode, the reader just knows this can't end well.
ZAM, as Maxfield calls herself, also creates a network of complicated lesser characters, warily watching the couple. Rock and Sky’s love finds tentative grounding in their web.
Like real people, Maxfield’s characters are complex. They see the good and bad in one another and themselves. But they have blind spots, are inflexible, and cannot stop their visceral reactions, even when their responses act against their own best interests.
As always, ZAM’s unerring ear for language binds the tale. Here are three sumptuous tidbits.
“Decent people aren’t all that thick on the ground. When you find one, you ought to do whatever you can to acknowledge it or pay it forward. Some shit like that.”
“A man’s worth isn’t defined by the direction his dick points when he’s looking for love.”
“Elena was blushing so fiercely we could have signaled an airplane. And just like that I realized the awful truth: Elena was going to get laid and I had zero prospect of saying the same.”
My Cowboy Freedom is a must-read in a charged era of changing sexual principles.
The novel’s "turn the other cheek" scene stole my breath. And yet, there was more… and more. The plot is as sweetly innocent as it is inexorably foreboding. It meanders along between one explosive crescendo and the next, the twists and turns both expected and unpredictable. I felt wiser, even honored, to have shared Rock and Sky’s tribulations.
Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter purchased My Cowboy Freedom to offer our fair and honest opinion.
Z. A. Maxfield started writing in 2007 on a dare from her children and never looked back. Pathologically disorganized, and perennially optimistic, she writes as much as she can, reads as much as she dares, and enjoys her time with family and friends.
Three things reverberate throughout all her stories: Unconditional love, redemption, and the belief that miracles happen when we least expect them. If anyone asks her how a wife and mother of four can find time for a writing career, she’ll answer, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you give up housework.”
