Rating: 5 ‘Rowdy’ Stars

Publisher: Kelly Fox

Genre: Gay Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Age Gap (13 Years), Demisexual Character, Friends-to-Lovers, Opposites Attract, Romance, Series, Virgin

Length: 308 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

This review has spoilers. There’s no way to tell Rowdy’s story without them. Keep that in mind before reading this review.

I’d sooner cage a wild bird than try to pin that cowboy down. But God, I want to make him mine.

Our sizzling banter and filthy texts are the stuff of legends, but Rowdy is the king of one-night stands, and one night with him will never be enough.

I crave a future with him, which is exactly why I’ve kept him at arm’s length.

One drunken kiss, however, has me questioning everything I thought I knew about Rowdy Lockwood. Is he the lovable himbo everyone thinks he is, or is there more to him than meets the eye?

Whatever the truth is, I’ve decided that my sassy cowboy is a mystery worth solving.

Pure Country is an age gap, friends-to-lovers romance that features a secretive cowboy with a filthy imagination, a sweet city lawyer with a nose for deflection, and a pushy friend with a flare for the dramatic.

Review –

Rowdy and Kess were both introduced in Rough Country, #1 in the series. Rowdy is Woody’s cousin, and Kess is Emery’s best friend and business partner. When they met, they immediately started flirting. For two years, that’s all it’s been – a whole lot of flirting, with most of it happening via silly and sexy texts they send back and forth.

Kess, after seeing how happy Emery is after his own semi-retirement, decides to do the same. He’s gifted quite a bit of land by Emery right by his and Woody’s place and the cabin Rowdy now lives in; the same cabin that Woody lived in before he and Emery got together. Kess has a house built, which brings him even closer to Rowdy. This is good for both men yet not.

Kess is head over heels in love with Rowdy.

God help me, I’m going to marry Rowdy Lockwood if it’s the last thing I do.

Rowdy is head over heels in love with Kess.

Unfortunately, they refuse to act on their feelings because they have no clue the other feels the same. They have a great friendship, and neither is willing to screw that up.

Rowdy is well-known for his one night stands. He’s always heading to Austin for some hookup action, or as Woody not-so-eloquently put it, he’s sleeping his way through the city. It’s a running joke with all the guys, and it’s constantly being mentioned during his and Kess’ flirty texts. So when Kess is having a drunken orgy of a housewarming – okay, not quite an orgy but pretty damn close – he and Rowdy have a bit too much to drink and they make out a little. This has never happened before, and both guys are totally into it… into they’re not.

Correction: Until Rowdy’s not. When things start getting good, he ends the little make-out session, confusing Kess.

What it does it terrify Rowdy, though he has to play it off like it’s something else.

Now here’s where the spoilers start. If you don’t want to know the truth about Rowdy, stop reading here.

Contrary to what everybody seems to believe, what’s he’s actually encouraged everybody to believe, Rowdy doesn’t do one night stands. He doesn’t do hookups at all. He’s done a few handjobs here and there, mainly him doing other guys, but he’s not done anything else sexually. No penetrative sex, no blowjobs. To be honest, he doesn’t feel the all-need to have sex with, well, anybody. Strike that. He does have the all-need to have sex with Kess, but he’ll never share that tidbit of info. He wants it all with Kess, not just sex. He feels a connection with Kess, a real connection, which means that Kess is his person, so to speak.

So Rowdy has spent years pretending to be one person when he’s anything but. He’s not a player who takes off to Austin for hookups on the regular. He does take off to Austin often, but it’s to volunteer for a youth home. He identifies as demisexual, and has to feel a real emotional connection before he can do anything sexual.

Kess just wants to marry Rowdy, have kids, and have a long life together. He doesn’t care how many guys Rowdy has slept with. Okay, he does, but he wants to be the one Rowdy settles down with. After the housewarming, he starts seeing things in Rowdy that he’d never seen before, things that have him questioning if Rowdy is the person he’s led everybody else to believe he is.

Spoiler: he’s not.

It takes a while for Rowdy’s truth to come out, and when it does it shocks the hell out of Kess. I was very pleased with how everything was revealed. It happened at a youth home meeting when one of the kids – who Rowdy had been trying to help for sometime – makes it where he has to reveal his truths or Jax, the young man, can’t reveal his own. This is done the one and only time Kess has gone with him, a time when Kess wasn’t invited but he went anyway.

After that, there was no more hiding anything.

“I could get used to this,” he said, reaching up to kiss my chin.

“Me too, sweetheart.”

Me too, my love.

They were finally able to move in the right direction as far as their feelings, both sexual and emotional.

And here’s where I had a bit of a problem. I mention in my review for the first book that it was a bit overkill when it came to the sex. Don’t get me wrong, Emery and Woody’s angry sex was hot as hell. I just felt that there was simply too much of it. The same is the case for Pure Country. Kess and Rowdy hadn’t really even had a talk about things before Kess was giving him a handjob. Then it went on from there. There was a lot of sex when there should’ve been more conversation. That’s my opinion. I’m not knocking good sex in books, but there are times when I feel the characters should talk about things. Granted, it’s takes quite a while (maybe halfway into the book) before Rowdy’s truth is known, but still. I guess they were making up for lost time. 🙂

Even with that, I loved this book. Rowdy is a true sweetheart who only wants to live his life and help people. He wants to be with Kess and he wants children. Kess is the same. He’s a good man who has held on to hope of him and Rowdy coming together, though he never thought it would happen because Rowdy’s known as a player.

There’s another story in the background happening that includes Jax from the youth home and his mother, Sadie. I loved how all their issues came to a resolution.

Overall, this is a great book. The author did a great job of writing Rowdy’s demisexuality during the first half. My issue, as I said, is that once it was made known, he and Kess were together sexually in some way almost every page until the end. I’m still giving it 5 stars because I love these guys together, but I’ve noticed a pattern with this author’s books when it comes to sex. I’m by no means a prude, but sometimes there can be too much of a good thing.

I can’t not mention Stevie, Emery’s daughter. While she’s grown out of some of her sparkles, she’s still her own too smart for her own good person. I absolutely adored her.

Skylar and Kit from the next book, Gone Country, were introduced here. I simply adore Sky and all his flamboyance.