A WALK IN THE SUN

Lonesome, tenderhearted cowboy? Check. Grieving and fiercely independent young woman who’s sworn never again to open herself up to love? Check. An undeniable chemistry “like the charge in the air just before lightning cracks the sky?” Double check.

Rose Darrow, a newly minted high school graduate, is neither college bound nor setting off to explore the world she longs to see. Instead, she will remain at home to run the farm where her family has lived for generations while grieving the loss of her mother and tending to her broken-hearted father. Enter 18-year-old Bodhi Lowell, a cowboy who left home at 14 and never turned back. Hired by Rose’s aunt as a summer hand, Bodhi arrives at the Darrow farm, and the inevitable sparks begin to fly. Though it's predictable and rife with hyperbolic professions of love and longing, readers who know the score and are willing to go along for the ride will find plenty to enjoy. The white teens are both likable and damaged just enough to engage easy sympathy, and fans will surely find themselves rooting for Bodhi and Rose to get together and for their predestined (both figurative and literal) roll in the hay.

Channeling the likes of Nicholas Sparks, Zink offers readers a formulaic, saccharine-sweet summer romance that will leave fans of the genre with racing hearts and others with their teeth aching.