Author: Douglas Black
Publisher: Loose Id
Pages/Word Count: 108 Pages
Rating: 4 Stars
Blurb: When Kade Doherty gets dumped, he expects sympathy from his friends. Instead, he gets a bucket list. His friends want to help him enjoy life again, but Kade isn’t convinced a list of outlandish leisure pursuits will help much with that. To keep the peace he goes along with the plan and in the process, he meets Blake. Blake’s Australian accent and surfer-boy looks are the stuff of sexual fantasies and Kade surprises everyone – including himself – when he wastes no time making a move.
Kade goes with Blake into the Scottish highlands, but just as he is beginning to get used to life with his very own Mr. Australia, reality comes knocking. Kade’s newfound happiness falls apart when his abusive ex demands they meet. Blake senses something is wrong and he wants to help, but Kade knows he can’t confide in Blake.
After all, Kade hasn’t exactly been honest. He might feel like a different man when he’s with Blake, but Kade knows he’s still just an accountant from Glasgow with slight obsessive compulsions and a bucket list that someone else wrote. He knows Blake won’t hang around, let alone help, when he finds out the truth.
Or will he?
Review: After spending years with the same man, Kade Doherty is caught completely off guard when his partner up and leaves him. Psychologically, Kade isn’t handling the situation well, and his friends let him wallow for a bit. Eventually, they give him some tough love and do their best to bring him back into the world of the living. Since Kade lives a mostly simple life, his friends make him a bucket list to get him out of the house and help him recover.
While ticking off one of the items on his new bucket list, Kade meets Blake at an Asian grocery store and the two men share some instant chemistry. They end up connecting quickly, and something about Blake allows Kade to let go in a way he has never done before. Kade takes a chance and goes away with Blake, up into the Highlands, and is pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
These two men seem to be complete opposites on the outside, but deep down they share more than meets the eye. Both of them have been hurt in the past, and those hurts have gone a long way to shaping them into the men they are. Before they can get their relationship in high gear, Kade’s ex brings the drama, and it could cause them to be over before they even get started.
I think Douglas Black did a great job of portraying these two men in this story. Kade needed to discover his own strengths, and Blake seemed to need someone who needed him. I loved these two guys together, and Blake eventually showed us his true colors. I adored him.
This was just a sweet love story, and I’d recommend it for a snuggle under a blanket with a cup of coffee weekend read. I can’t wait to see what’s next from this author.
You can buy The Bucket List here:
Love the cover.