I'm having a hard time deciding how to react to this book...

As a premise, the idea of having two MCs fall in love in Russia, a country where LGBT people can be arrested or much worse, is a very intriguing plot line. I was really looking forward to something new and different, and this premise had a ton of promise to be something profound!

Unfortunately, the execution fell flat. It's not that the writing was bad, it just wasn't enough. I had a hard time accepting MCs Laramie and Anastasia as a couple because there was very little romance until late in the book. Part of it was due to the legalities of the situation, but Wallace really missed a ton of opportunities to put in small bits of flirtation and buildup their story. Instead of a romance, this book felt like it was more about learning to run a ranch and handle personalities on the ranch. The two MCs really didn't even talk about anything important (lives, pasts, etc), let alone have a build up in their relationship at all. And once they did get together (well after the book was 3/4 done btw) even the sex scene was just... boring.

This book could have been so powerful and so much MORE, but in the end, it just wasn't. I hate to say it, but I was disappointed.

3 stars.

**Many thanks to Bold Strokes Books for providing me with an ARC copy in exchange for my honest review.**

On one side is Laramie, Wyoming a station wagon that, because of an accident of her brother, accepts an unusual job on a ranch in Godoroye Russia, which can help pay for hospital and rehabilitation bills.

On the other is Anastasia, an alleged LGBT activist but who acts with great caution since she lives in Moscow and she is always at the expense of some complaint or a police raid that leads to jail or worse consequences, due to the closed Russian mentality and the laws that criminalize homosexuality there. She seems to have problems to get and keep jobs and thanks to her friend Mischa, best friend and roommate and also nephew of the ranch owner in which Laramie goes to work and as Anastasia can speak English, she gets hired as a translator between Laramie and the Russian workers to whom she must train

Once the story moves to Godoroye, they start several issues that have not been solved quite well.
The homophobia that in the end is not so much, the embezzlement that the foreman is carrying out, Anastasia's orphanhood and so on. Really, there are times when history loses its meaning a bit and for me this has been a pity.

Remembering her previous books, this author has been a bit disappointing for me lately. Either way, I will not let these latest books make me discard her in the future. And I really hope that her future books will be better than this one

I ARC received via NetGalley and in exchange for an honest review.

For rancher Laramie family always comes first so when her brother is injured she decide to take the job offer from a wealthy man name Sergei who a fan of John Wayne in Godoroye, Russia to help pay his medical bills. I like that even though she doing this for family but she also wanted a adventure and that her friend Shorty came along to watch out for her well her mother persuade him to go with her daughter.

Anastasia is out and proud lesbian but it causes her few jobs because in Russia being lgbtq is a crime so when her friend Misha tells her about a job that his Uncle Sergei needs a a full-time translator as a go between she at first think about it but then decide to take the job.

This was ok read but it sad that by laws in Russia can't be yourself. The romance was ok even through it started later in the story and we didn't really see Laramie and Anastasia get to know each other well it focus more on the farming which I like learning about but I wish we learn more about Laramie and Anastasia past more.

I fall somewhere between three and four stars in my feelings about this novel, but perhaps closer to three than four. When Laramie Bowman’s older brother is injured in a rodeo, she takes up a position to set up and run a ranch for a wealthy Russian John Wayne fan. It seems a good way to help pay the medical bills even though it means being in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Anastasia Petrova takes the job as the translator for the foreign ranchers because she’s been fired from most of her jobs for insisting on being out and proud and desperately needs the money.

The setting is very appealing and I think this is the first romance I’ve read set in Russia, which has loads of tension inherent by virtue of the laws. Unfortunately though, it wasn’t much of a romance until quite late in the story. There is a stronger emphasis on Laramie having to deal with the existing foreman and farm hands in relation to the cultural divide than there is on the attraction Laramie and Anastasia feel for each other.

The focus on farming also meant that there wasn’t enough exchanging of personal information between Laramie and Anastasia to have a full understanding of them and their pasts. Anastasia’s past could have been an incredibly powerful theme but it was glossed over in generalisations. So while I enjoyed the writing and the setting, I felt let down by the lack of tension and romance.

Book received from Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.