Title: His Horizon
Author: Con Riley
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 319 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance
At a Glance: His Horizon is made of romance, in its entirety, front to back and everywhere in between. What a gorgeous world to spend some time in.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Temperatures rise when there are two cooks in Jude’s kitchen…
Jude’s drowning in guilt when he can’t save his family business single-handed. The last person he expects to throw a lifeline is Rob, a rival chef who once beat him to first place in a cooking contest.
Two chefs working together won’t be easy. Not when Rob is everything Jude isn’t—popular, extroverted, and a one-time hook-up. What’s worse is that Rob wears his heart on his sleeve while Jude’s still in the closet.
Jude’s dilemma doesn’t end there. Rob’s rescue package comes with conditions that mean sharing everything from the profits to Jude’s sleeping quarters. Sleeping with the enemy will either be a disaster or signal a much brighter future, but only if Jude can meet Rob’s final condition and love him in the open.
Review: His Horizon is a book about so much more than the blurb suggests. It’s a book about what Con Riley does best. It’s about family—both biological and found—and friendships and community. It’s a story that exudes feelings of warmth and comfort and love all wrapped up in a central conflict that, rather than delivering the standard Big Angst moment before the resolution (which I was expecting, to be honest, because this is the Romance genre), it instead shepherds readers through the trying times and parses out secrets and details in a way that strengthens these relationships and then delivers Jude Anstey and Rob Martin to the moment they will promise to spend the rest of their lives loving each other. It’s not a story without its share of heartache and turmoil, but how it’s all handled—with frank conversation and quiet moments leaning on each other, through the good and the bad—is what makes this book such a lovely read.
Jude and Rob met while competing for the title of “Britain’s best new chef”, but a single phone call that delivers an unexpected blow derailed Jude’s chances of winning, something that seemed a sure bet until he abruptly quit the competition and returned to his family home in Porthperrin. His hasty departure also derailed any chance Rob may have had of convincing Jude that they could be more than just rivals, leaving Rob disappointed, to say the least, and a bit heartsore that he’d made so little impression on Jude that Jude could ghost him so thoroughly after a scorching kiss that felt like it could become something more.
Jude’s sister Louise plays unwitting matchmaker months later when Jude returns home unexpectedly to not only find Rob asleep in his bed, but his family’s pub redecorated, with a new upscale menu, and under new management too. While not all smooth sailing ahead, not by a long shot—Porthperrin was ravaged by a hurricane shortly after Jude disappeared, leaving Louise to call on Rob in a time of need—it does give Rob and Jude the chance to mend some hurt feelings as well as to continue building upon what they’d only barely started. When Jude begins to feel something a bit like hope after such a long stretch of feeling hopeless and helpless and afraid, watching the horizon for something that has begun to feel impossible, he finds that looking to Rob for strength gives him what he needs—the love and support he was so afraid to grab hold of because he was afraid of what he might lose if he came out to his family.
Rob proves to be so much more than Jude saw on the surface, and I loved their teasing banter as much as I did their vulnerable moments. Rob’s generosity and patience and deep well of compassion are on display at any given moment, making it easy to see why Jude leaned on him and fell so deeply in love with him, even if he’d misjudged Rob’s character when they first met. I mean, Rob’s idea of flirting…. Nevertheless, they discover the sort of love that is patient and kind, and it’s on full display for all to see when Jude comes to terms with the fact that he wants nothing more than to quit hiding and love Rob out in the open. The weight on their shoulders to save the pub from financial ruin leads up to a few tense moments in the story, but even those are resolved in a thoughtful and honest way.
His Horizon is made of romance, in its entirety, front to back and everywhere in between. What a gorgeous world to spend some time in.
You can buy His Horizon here:
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