The job at Sunday Orchard was supposed to be temporary.
A chance to gain some work experience. To have some fun. To get away from my overprotective brothers. To maybe, possibly encounter some lumberjacks in their natural habitat before moving on to the dream career that awaited me in the city.
I had not expected to be welcomed into a family of gorgeous and weirdly efficient lumberjack-types myself. Or to find a purpose in the tiny Vermont town whose claim to fame seemed to be apple-based products and copious amounts of charm.
And I most definitely hadn’t expected to fall for Knox Sunday, my grumpy, burly, fifteen-years-older, reluctant roommate, with his infuriating lectures, his hot-as-fire body, his superior attitude, his snarky humor, and his stealth cuddles.
Now I find myself making excuses to delay my big dreams… just for a little while.
But Knox has unfulfilled dreams of his own. A career he walked away from. A big city life in Boston he left behind when he returned to his hometown to help his family. He claims he’s not looking for anything permanent, and I’ve never been one to put down roots.
My big life is waiting for me somewhere other than Little Pippin Hollow. So why does it feel like I’ve finally found the home of my heart?
And how can I get Knox Sunday to… pick me?
Title: Pick Me
Authors: May Archer
Series: The Sunday Brothers, Book 1
Amazon – Kindle Unlimited
Goodreads
My life had been a circus before Gage Goodman had showed up, it was true. But it had been a rational, well-organized circus. Three tidy rings, safety nets all around, and the shit had been shoveled regularly.
Then that… that… kid had come to the orchard two weeks ago, all sunshine-smiley and messy-haired and smelling like the ocean, taking over every single one of my spaces with his sly smile and his hilariously awful t-shirts and his dark eyes that showed his every emotion, and suddenly my life was a chaotic shit show run by rabid twin monkeys called lust and frustration that made me do stupid things like re-download the Grindr app in the dead of night just to check out who might be located twenty feet away from me—seriously, LumberjackLuvr? What kind of a user name was that, Goodman?—and blurt out things like, “Sure, I’ll go to lunch at your best friend Jack’s restaurant with you, Webb,” which was tantamount to me agreeing to Webb’s nosy matchmaking bullshit with his friend and Webb knew it.
I LOVED this book!
I had read a few of May Archer’s books before and I quite liked them. But there was something about this book that made me really love it. It is a spin off of a previous series that I haven’t read (too many books, too little time), but you absolutely don’t need to have read the previous. Only 1 detail wasn’t fully explained from the previous books, but it was kind of a big-ish detail, which is why I am taking away 1/2 a piece of eye candy. Ok, one other thing. I’ll get to that.
This books is snark + grumpy. You know they attract each other like moths to flames. The snark comes from Gage, newly out of college who scores a job at an apple orchard in Vermont. Being from the Keys in Florida, that is about the polar opposite of what he is used to. But he is all in. They need him to revamp their website, build an app and help them streamline everything.
Except his office and roommate at the new job is the oldest brother of the family who own and run the orchard. Knox is 15 years older than Gage, cranky and on a mental health sabbatical from his high stress job in Boston. So ya, of course, sparks.
There is a whole big cast of characters- Knox’s siblings and uncle, his uncle’s boyfriend, etc. They all welcome Gage with open arms and pretty immediately treat him like family. But that is just how they are. And Gage is a great guy. But naturally Knox has to fight it and be a jerk. At first.
We all know that Knox can’t hold out forever, they start the classic “FWB” thing, nothing serious, except it is and even though they think it is a secret it totally isn’t.
So some of the things I loved about the book. Gage is snarky. BUT he isn’t constantly snarky. I hate when it is over done. But it isn’t at all here. So when it does pop up, it is perfect. I also really felt like Gage spoke like a real 24 year old. Not a 24 year old as written by a 40 year old (I have no idea how old the author is, just throwing a number out there). It felt authentic.
Even though Knox is the oldest, the farm was left to his brother by design. He feels a bit like an outsider being back after working in Boston for so long. But he just needs to open his eyes to his family around him.
With a small town and a big family, you know there is going to be some people being super nosy into what others are doing. But these guys aren’t like that. Ok, except Webb who is scheming to get Knox together with his best friend Jack. But they all really live and coexist with each other without stepping on toes or fighting and I really enjoyed reading about a well functioning family.
Oh, the only other thing that knocked me down 1/2 a POEC is that Gage is helping with the irrigation system, which is kind of odd because he is all computers. I mean, he took a trip to Boston just to get some kinds of parts for it. Just seemed out there.
So 100% read this book. I can’t believe I have to wait until May for book 2. Sigh.
4.5 pieces of eye candy
May is an M/M author who lives in Boston. She spends her days raising three incredibly sarcastic children, finding inventive ways to drive her husband crazy, planning beach vacations, avoiding the gym, reading M/M romance, and occasionally writing it. She also writes MF romance as Maisy Archer.
Sign up for her newsletter at: https://www.subscribepage.com/MayArcher_News
Connect with May:
Facebook Page | Club May: Facebook Group
Twitter | Instagram
Website | Contact | Newsletter
Amazon Page | Goodreads | BookBub
a Rafflecopter giveaway
