Book Review: ‘Downpour' by Maggie Gates (the next cowboy romance on your TBR)
You've probably read ‘Dust Storm' by now, the first book in the Griffiths Brothers series, and that's why you're here. Book 2, ‘Downpour' came out in May of this year and you're wondering if it can live up to the expectations set by its predesscor.
Simply put? I think it might be better.
Some other cowboy romance articles for your persusal:
16 more cowboy romance reads while you wait for the next Lyla Sage book
Ranking every romance in the Chestnut Springs series by Elsie Silver
Here's the summary:
Ray
Rule #1 of almost dying: Make sure someone knows your passwords. It’s hard to cancel your phone plan if you’re dead.
Rule #2 of almost dying: Make sure your house is clean before you walk up the steps to the pearly gates. It makes selling off your life easier.
Back-up plans are for people who plan on losing.
All it took was eight seconds for me to win the biggest competition of my life, and one second to lose everything except that championship buckle.
I had left my family’s cattle ranch at eighteen with no intention of ever coming back for good.
Now I was back, stuck in a wheelchair with a beautiful disaster attempting to burn my house down.
Brooke
Rule #1 of trying to not get fired: Don’t piss off the grumpy bull rider.
Rule #2 of trying to not get fired: When you do get fired, keep your chin up. The grumpy bull rider was hot.
It was just a little fire. Tiny, even. But that didn’t change the fact that Ray Griffith didn’t want me anywhere near him.
But we came to an agreement: I ignore him, and he doesn’t fire me.
Easy, right? Not so much when we can’t keep our hands off each other.
Thing about second book syndrome is that when it flops, it really flops. But when it's good? It's sometimes hard to know how much you are relying on the foundations already laid by the first book.
I think with ‘Downpour', the set up obviously happens in ‘Dust Storm', which if you haven't read yet watch out for SPOILERS here. ALERT! SPOILERS!
We good? Ok good.
We join Ray along his recovery journey after the horrific bull riding accident at the end of ‘Dust Storm'. I was so intrigued to find out how the author was going to handle this, and how it was going to pan out.
I thought that Ray’s story, albeit sad, still had so much hope and joy in it. There's a realistic amount of expectations on his recovery, and although he shows significant progress, I liked that the book doesn't end with him having some kind of miraculous bill of clean health and he's back on the rodeo circuit. No. We follow him come to terms with his “new normal” and at no point is his lot trivialised.
Brooke, on the other hand, is every inch the sunshine to his grumpy. I don't think I've met a more sunshine character than her. There are moments where she almost grates, especially in comparison to Ray's storm clouds.
But I quickly understood it. I was watching their dynamic relationship develop and I got it.
The only thing that made me a bit uncomfortable was their age gap. I'm never a big fan of age gap romances, but they are both fully fledged adults, so you do you, it was just a small detail that made me pull a cringe face. I think she's… 23 and he's in his 30s. So… Yah. However you feel about that is valid. I don't think there's a right or wrong there just preference.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I was loathe to put it down and I smashed it in two days.
Such a great addition to the genre, and I look forward to book 3!
Written by Sarah
