Mirrigold: Mutterings & Musings

Hot Blood by A.E. Lister

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think this one is probably my favourite in the series so far and, bizarrely, it’s really only tangible to the whole setting as it involves a photographer visiting the ranch.

However, there is still some ponyplay, he’s attracted to a wilful and contrary ponyboy he meets on his first day and it’s clear there’s a spark of interest from the younger Puck too.

There’s some of the usual great depth of detail given to the whole kink side of the Braided Crop Ranch which is something I’ve always appreciated about this series, but – as with the others – a lot of stuff is also only referenced as throwaway lines, which makes me lose my connection to the characters.

Still, all in all I did very much buy into the relationship development and I liked the mutual to-ing and fro-ing that went on between Puck and Oliver as they found their feet in how they wanted things to progress.

It has some lovely moments of sweetness too, as Puck is struggling with dealing with the after effects of something which has happened to his best friend and Oliver helps provide him with a strong comfort to finally take action.

Interestingly, this one has no mention of any of the other relationships already established at the Ranch, something I felt overtook the narrative in Dark Horse, but I would still have expected both Adam and Kamal to have at least mentioned they had boyfriends!

(NOTE: The author’s note mentions that this takes place before the events in Stable Hand, so no boyfriends for either of them, I somehow seem to have missed this when I requested the ARC originally!)

Overall though this was a very quick and easy read with lots of good parts and I will always enjoy seeing how well A.E. Lister writes the kink element of this series.

#ARC kindly received from the author and publisher via Indigo PR in return for an honest and unbiased review

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