I kept going down the Eli Easton rabbit hole after completing the Nerds vs. Jocks series and stumbled across this in the Kindle Unlimited library. The blurb drew me in because childhood best friends to lovers is usually a really good trope, that’s usually with a gap in between after one comes out, but this one was different.
The protagonists of this novel are Jordan, a nerdy kid who loves to draw, and Owen, the big jock who becomes a state-wide wrestling star and has protected Jordan ever since he came out. It wasn’t until after I finished the novel that I realized some of the scenes may have happened when they were under age and that made me feel a little squidgy.
This was by far my least favorite novel even though it was a return to the ranch with everything in the book happening there (except one scene). Only one of the protagonists was connected to the story at all, Martin, the kid of Adam Justin’s kidnappers who experienced just as much abuse and torment as they did. The other protagonist, Tyler, is a random seismologist (I think), who happened to realize there was a hole in the seismology network and convinced Nate, from book one, to let him put a detector on Crooked Tree Ranch property.
Book five of the R.J. Scott’s Montana series gives us an in-depth look at two characters who have made multiple quick appearances throughout the series so far. We have Rob, Justin’s (from 
Not going to lie, this and the next, 
I wasn’t too surprised with this novel continuing the trend of being set in the West on a ranch, but not necessarily being a Western Romance, but it opened a lot darker than I thought it would! I’m talking full-on fight scenes and murder for survival! And there’s nothing wrong with that Scott jumped right in and grabbed my attention and kept me hooked for the first half of the novel.