Red Skies

by Joanne Kells

Divorced after thirteen years, Jesse Wade leaves the only home he’s ever known and finds work in Eden, North Dakota, as a ranch hand. His next relationship—this one with a man—is turbulent and eventually falls apart. Five years later, Jesse is still guilt-ridden, keeping his past and sexuality a secret.

Then he meets Ade Lardner, who breaks through the numbness surrounding Jesse’s heart. The affair rouses Jesse’s senses but is riddled with tragedy, and if Jesse and Ade are ever to find common ground, Jesse will have to decide if he wants to simply exist in the past or live passionately now and in the future.

Genres: M M Romance, Contemporary, Westerns, Romance, Gay, Family, LGBT

320 pages, ebook

First published March 3, 2011

About the author

Joanne Kells is forty years old, British, and lives in Dorset with her husband and two children. She started writing at an early age and eventually went to stage school in London at the age of eleven. After graduating she became an actress, writing stories and plays in her spare time until her late twenties. A traffic accident put an abrupt stop to her acting career, and through intensive rehab therapy, she was encouraged to go back to school and retrain as a rehab therapist.

She now has her own rehab therapy clinic, but her passion for writing continues. She tries to balance her life between family, her business, and her dreams of eventually writing full time. For now she enjoys living in a romantic setting by the sea, which drives her imagination forward. She is ever thankful for all the support she receives from her family to someday realize her dream.

Reviews

[Mandy*reads obsessively* · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4*

This was a long slowly flowing story, but I liked it.
It is a bit more angsty than my usual read, these two guys had a lot to deal with.
Poor Jesse has been practically eaten alive with guilt, he can't let him self move on from his lovers death.
Both MC's are regular guys, nice hard working cowboy and a peace corps worker.
Jesse helps Ade with his grief, and Ade helped Jesse break out of the shell he was in, but I am glad that love/sex didn't heal all, Jesse actually had to do a lot on his own to get where he needed to be.
There is a lot of day to day cowboy and ranch stuff in the story, especially in the first part of the story, but that was ok for me.
There is no instant love and the sex scenes aren't detailed or descriptive, I was also glad to see no huge homophobic cowboys or fathers in this story.
I would say i was in the mood for a story without a lot of outside conflict and no real 'action' and this one was perfect for that, it felt "real" somehow, I can't describe it any better than that.

[Nikyta · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Angsty books are the type of books I won't willingly read without a push. Mostly because I don't want to cry. Now, that's not saying I hate them or don't enjoy them (because I usually love them once I actually start reading) just that I prefer not to have my face look like a bee stung it with how swollen and blotchy it gets from crying. Yeah, I'm not a pretty crier :-( Anyway, this book, while not as angsty as some, will still make you shed a tear or two... or you might not.

I'd first like to warn you that the beginning of this story gives a, more or less, detailed description of what a cowboy does on a ranch with cattle. I didn't mind it because I love learning stuff like this but others might get annoyed, bored or impatient with the descriptive cattle drive and land explanations. However, after you get past the beginning there isn't an overload of information anymore.

This book revolves around the struggles Jesse and Ade go through to have a healthy relationship. Jesse is a middle-aged grieving cowboy that is just starting to settle back into his life. He's had many ups and downs starting with his marriage and his divorce. Then with having to deal with his demanding psychotic bi-polar lover, Johnny, and six years later, he's still mourning Johnny's death and what he went through afterwards. He's just now starting to settle down but he's still a somewhat broken, grieving man. He doesn't think he really deserves to be loved again or to love anyone because of what happened with Johnny. Ade, the boss's son, left North Dakota because he knew he could never live openly as a gay man and find love if he stayed. He comes home from the Peace Corps when his father, Patrick, ends up in the hospital. Ade just wants to be loved for who he is and be able to live openly about it while Jesse is so in the closet it's not even funny. Jesse has no problem acting on his feelings for men but actually admitting it out loud in front of someone is out of the question but Patrick thinks they'd be great for one another and does what he can to make it happen.

As you can probably guess, this book is an emotional one. Jesse has to go through a lot of stuff to get into the frame of mind he needs to be able to give Ade what he deserves to have. It's about Jesse getting over the love he has for his dead ex and finally moving on, becoming the (somewhat) openly gay man he needs to be to finally have the life he's always (subconsciously) wanted. Beyond the sexual tension that laces the pages (and there's a bunch of it) Jesse and Ade really are a good match. It's kind of sweet how Ade is willing to wait for Jesse to get his head out of Johnny's ass but also how and what Jesse is willing to do to make it happen. I really enjoyed it.

My only reservation about this story was Johnny. I know he was paramount to the story but I felt some of the scenes regarding or revolving around him could have either been cut short or cut out completely. It was frustrating and overwhelming with how much we got of him to the point that I sometimes felt we learned more about the dead ex than we did about the two MCs, Jess and Ade. Plus, I just didn't like Johnny. He seemed like a weak and needy person. He annoyed me to no end. I don't think I would have minded that so much if it weren't for how many flashbacks there were of him. They frustrated me because they happened at times when I wanted the story to move forward instead of backward. So, because of that, I felt as if I was struggling to finish the story in certain parts.

Overall, though, I quite enjoyed the story. I loved Ade and Jesse. I loved seeing how Jesse grieved even though I wished there were less of it revolving around Johnny. For those of you who like a good grieving hero story, this one will definitely fit the bill. Recommended.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Son of a ranch owner swears never to fall for a closeted cowboy...guess what happens... But this story is so much more. It is about two men trying to overcome crippling grief in their past. I appreciated the lack of a magical healing penis that makes things that people really need therapists for go away. This book actually focused on real healing and how to do the right thing for the one you love (they get it wrong half the time but thats what men do...at least they were trying). 4 stars,

[AngelFire · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 19%

Yet another highly anticipated ranching romance bites the dust for me. Despite a very shaky start, I got excited when I realized that the author took the cattle ranching aspects seriously (we get detailed descriptions of what the ranch hands do on a daily basis). I also liked Ade's unique background. He's the son of the cattle ranch owner, but he's always been more interested in farming. Specifically, he's really passionate about crop irrigation. After finishing a farming-related degree at school, he joined the Peace Corps and used his knowledge and passion to go to third world countries where he helped villages install irrigation systems. This was really, really cool and I would actually love to read a book about that. Unfortunately, Ade returns to the ranch when his dad gets sick so none of that other stuff matters.

I gave this book the side eye when I saw it was 320 pages because that seemed excessive for a straight forward ranching romance, but I gave it a shot because the characters seemed interesting and I love farm/ranch romances. Unfortunately, nothing worked for me here.

The writing was the biggest letdown because it's not very good. In fact, it's distractingly amateur at most times. You can tell the author really, really tried to make the dialog sound cowboy-ish, but most of it sounds unnatural. One thing I found hilarious is that every single cowboy except Ade swears by saying 'shit' and it's always used as an exclamation at the start of somebody's dialog (ex. "Shit! I hear coyotes!"). There's no variation from this pattern except once when Jesse slips in a few fucks too. The writing itself is stiff, oddly formal at times and contractions are often not used. Even worse, there were significant formatting issues, such as every single apostrophe being a double quotation mark as well as the existence of random line breaks. I also very nearly DNF'd in the first few pages because the author likes inserting random lengthy flashbacks into the narrative. The problem is that the transition between the timelines isn't clear and the author just switches to italicizing text to indicate that a flashback started. Even more confusing - there was tense switching going on. The story starts in present tense and the first flashback is in past tense. But then the author forgets about the present tense and everything is in past tense.

Due to the amateur writing, Ade came across as much younger than he actually was. He was supposed to be 31 years old so not much younger than Jesse's 38, but Ade was constantly acting overly emotional, making ridiculously formal declarations about how wonderful Jesse is and having lengthy, dramatic internal monologues about how he's attracted to Jesse but he doesn't know if Jesse's gay. Then he randomly kisses Jesse out of the blue, which isn't something a 31 year old man would do. Jesse's response was exactly what you'd expect it to be (anger/annoyance/shoving Ade away) but the fact that Ade did it at all was dumb.

Then there was the final problem: the blurb indicates that Jesse had been married to a woman at some point and he had a 'turbulent' relationship with a man, which 'fell apart'. First of all - the divorce happen over a decade before the story starts so I didn't appreciate the info dumps at the start about his ex-wife, daughter and granddaughter. He has little contact with any of them so they don't matter at that point. Second of all - the author purposefully leaves out the most important factor of Jesse's relationship with the guy he was with. You see, the relationship didn't 'fall apart' and this wasn't a short fling. They had been together for years and Jesse's partner died, presumably from a drug overdose and Jesse found his body (it's not clearly spelled out in the part I read so some details might be wrong). Five years later, Jesse is still very much in love with his deceased partner and grieving intensely. I normally avoid books that have setups like this because they don't work for me so if this had been spelled out clearly in the blurb, I would have avoided the book altogether.

Sure, this book is long enough that maybe the author did do a solid job of having Jesse work through his grief and then moving on to a new relationship with Ade but due to the poor writing, I'm not going to stick around long enough to find out.

[Meggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this story is perfect. From the start... you get a glimpse and you think you know it all, how the plot will turn out. But for my point of view, I can definitely state that I couldn't foresee such turn of event. This is truly an amazing piece of WORK. Greatly written story with powerful deep characters. A plot was emotional and amazing clean, with pure writing style.
TOTALLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BOOK !!

[Anke · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was slow, but nice, until the past of Jesse, well in fact it was the past of his first love, got drawn out and build up to this huge revelation.

[Mel Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

After years of merely going through the actions of life, Jesse finds himself confused and scared about the prospect of finding love again – especially now that he’s ready to acknowledge that he’s gay. His past relationship with a man, continues to haunt Jesse and holds him back from going after what he wants – the ranch owner’s son, Ade. Ade is not willing to be second fiddle to anyone, but quickly finds himself lusting after the quiet foreman. Will both men be able to overcome their internal struggles and desires and go after what they both need?

This story was well-written and very engaging. It started off slow, but hang in there because it’s definitely worth it in the end! One of the best features of this story is how well-developed each character is – even the ones who are not physically present. Almost immediately I found myself rooting for the characters and fully engaged with their emotional story and turmoil. The love story wasn’t rushed which I appreciated. There were a few places where I thought the “end” could have been rushed to fruition to satisfy a shorter book, but Kells stayed true to the story and characters. There was a lot of emotional turmoil and ups and downs throughout – I found myself smirking, tearing up, and every thing in between – which for me, shows the depth and flow of Kells writing.

The love romance was hot and so was the sex. Don’t expect a lot of sex in this story – it truly is more of a romance than an erotica read. However, when there was sex, it was passionate and emotional and always added significant value to their story together. There was a hint of some Dominance/submission, but it was very vanilla sex with more assertion at times, than anything else.

Out of four…
Overall Read: ♥♥♥
Sex Heat: ♥♥
Plot: ♥♥♥♥

This is a great read and I definitely recommend it. Hot cowboys, internal struggles, emotional turmoil, and did I say, hot cowboys? I think this is a good read for many different audiences – romance readers, new m/m readers, and those who love a good long book.

[Feliz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told in Jesse’s and Ade’s alternating third person’s POV (with the main part of the narrative owned by Jesse), both main characters come alive nicely in the book. I found them both believable and consistent. Mainly Jesse went through an amazing process of self-discovery and growth that was fascinating to watch. Ade was a likeable, sweet man who nevertheless knew what he wanted. He was demanding enough to shake Jesse out of his emotional stupor, but confiding enough to give Jesse time and space.
From the secondary cast Ade’s father stood out. He was a great dad for Ade, understanding to a fault – almost to good in a larger-than-life way, but a great supporting character. I also liked Sandra, the Ranch secretary, and Emma, Jesse’s daughter.
The lovingly detailed worldbuilding created a strong feeling of place for the Lardner ranch, from the everyday farm life to the cattle drive, from the comradship among the cowboys to the landscape descriptions. Later, the outwardly details gave way to the inner workings of both Jesse and Ade, which fit the story flow since all those heavy issues they had to overcome were mostly their inner conflicts and took up a lot of space.
This was an angst – and drama – heavy read. The story touched on many difficult topics, among them self-denial, death of a loved one, self – discovery, drug addiction, mental disorder, guilt, shame, suicide… hard stuff, but handled sensibly. My biggest niggle was that the characters stood in their own ways at times; the old real-men-don’t-talk trope, particularly on Jesse’s part, made me want to shake some sense into him at times. Well, he grew out of that eventually. Also, there was one coincidence that stretched my ability to suspend disbelief very, very far, although it was necessary to forward the plot.

All in all, for those who are into angst and emotion and don’t mind a bit of drama, this is an engrossing, powerfully written story. I can recommend it.

[Antonella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked: the very realistic description of the life and work in the ranch; the conflict in Jesse; the fact that the characters had psychological depth.

I didn't like: too many flashbacks, especially concerning Johnny; the MCs talking loud to themselves, and sometimes even being discovered by someone else doing this; the too twisted secondary plot in the second part, with quite an incredible coincidence and a multiple complication of the already complicated Johnny's story; sometimes descriptions were too detailed, I felt like skimming.

[Nightcolors · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tough book to rate... Characters felt real and it was well written. But I ended up liking it less the farther I got into the story. This is obviously entirely a personal opinion, but this just felt too depressing to me. Then finding out the truth about Johnny... That made me feel way too down, it rather destroyed what enjoyment I still had at that point.

So 2.5 stars.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story about a man whose lover tragically dies, leaving him afraid to move on into a healthier relationship. The story is hampered somewhat by skipping around a lot in time. But: cowboys!

I read the ebook and there was a large chunk of the book that was in italics for no apparent reason, which was distracting.

[Damon Suede · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well-written handling of the hoary "saving the ranch" M/M trope with believable characters, thoughtful detail, and inexorable sexy build... A little byzantine with the backstory, but coherent above all else. Strongly recommended,

[Louan · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 ⭐️
It took me forever to start enjoying this book, thought about giving up quite a few times, and if it wasn’t for it helping me in two GR challenges it would have ended up that way.
Saying that about 40% in it hooked me good. How good? Well it’s not often a book can bring me to tears. ( yes I’m a cold hearted bitch and proud of it.) then things got really interesting learning about just how Johnny wasn’t who Jesse thought he was. So it had me pretty much all night trying to finish it. I’m deducting .25 ⭐️ Because it was just that annoying in the beginning otherwise it’s definitely a 5 ⭐️ Book

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book turned out better than I expected! When you start reading it seems like author laid all the cards in front of you, and it’s very obvious, and quite boring. But then tension is building, new facts or new perspectives of old facts are showed to us, and everything changes. Interesting plot twists, character development, and I’m glad they felt somewhat real.

[Janeylou · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 I actually never heard of this book before but was looking for a book that took place in North Dakota and this one fit the bill. It was a nice bonus that I ended up really liked this story of a man, Jesse Wade, struggling to get over his grief from an old love in order to make him free to move on to his new love, Ade. There are some caveats. Since this book is about cowboys and ranching, it does go into some details about this, especially in the beginning. There's quite a bit of flashbacks in this book as well mainly concerning Jesse's prior lover Johnny. In fact, at times Johnny and Jesse takes over the story, instead of being about the main couple Jesse and Ade. Because this is a long story, though, you get to really see Jesse's struggles to get to a place where he & Ade can have their HEA. There was really just one thing that bothered me. Johnny's character gets a little trashed by the end of the story. It would be nice for a change that the lover who dies doesn't have to be so flawed in order for the character to love again. Also the backstory on Johnny got way over complicated. Other than that, this is a nice, somewhat angsty cowboy story .

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was certainly one of the better cowboy-books out there.

I loved the characters, they had depth and even though I occasionally felt like Jesse and his past got all of the limelight, it was still an excellent, complex story.

The men were real men, that's always a plus. They also had a softer side, which was balanced nicely.

The only thing that bothered me a bit was the detail of the ranch life in the first half of the book and the lack of it in the second half. There was a bit of an imbalance there, but it was a minor glitch.

Lovable, faulty characters and some interesting themes in a multi-layered story, definitely worth a read.

[Tamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved how these characters were written, so real I could almost touch the love and the pain. Jesse had so much to deal with all his life, it was sad to realize how much of his life he lived in denial or regret. Thank goodness he met Ade, though it took a lot to get past his guilt, he knew he had to move forward or lose Ade forever.

Great characters and story. I read this through in one sitting with a short break for lunch. Lucky for me I started this on a Sunday so I was able to finish in one day.

Recommended!

[Janie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, just wow. This was such a breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreaking story. Jesse and Ade are two extremely strong individuals who are both struggling to deal with their pasts and the heartbreak that has happened in their lives. Its a very emotional trip with them through the pain and healing and its not something that happens overnight. And by meeting one another, it helps them both learn to grow and cope with the pain they feel and it brings them to a much better place as a couple. This book does have a H.E.A. and it is one I would definitely recommend.

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although not my natural choice of book, I am extremely pleased I picked it up. I couldn't put it down. ( I did, but only so the read would last longer.) The writing had me caring about the characters quickly. The words flowed easily so I could concentrate on the story.

Could see the twists coming but no way could I guess where they were going (hate predictable books). Would definatly recomend to anyone who just wants to lose themselves in a good book. Just wish it wasn't over so quick.

[Annika · Rating 3 out of 5]

while the first half wasn't perfect (prose, editing and the kind of akward and too many sex scenes) it was a pageturner for me. Unfortunately the second half turned out to be more an overlong therapy session... I also regretted that Johnny wasn't a more normal person (don't want to spil anything here). Getting over the dead of a loved one maybe paired with guilt problemns like Jesse had are out there.

[Blue Bayou . · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Good story. The progression of personal growth with the MC's felt natural. There was some psychoanalysis but it fell in line with the story. This felt like 2 people in love who were trying to make themselves better for each other. Other reviewer stated that the story is 'real'. I wish I had the word/words to explain better but honestly it just felt like a real story. I am going to be looking for more Joanne Kells stories in the future.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was quite interesting and the writing really good but in the end I felt as though I had been sitting in on a psychoanalysis session. Some parts of the book were very moving but maybe Ms Kells put just a little too much of her professional therapist work into the story. Maybe as well too many and repetitive sex scenes for my liking but nevertheless I quite like the book.

[Vicki Dudley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story. While it is full of tragedy and heartbreak, it is also full of love. Well worth a read if you like stories that have a great plot and not just sex, even though the sex is seriously hot!!! Also, hot cowboys!!!!

[Juxian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Normally I really like this type of stories: a character loses the love of his life and then meets another man and slowly recovers and learns to love again. But I couldn't help it: both characters of 'Red Skies' were so annoying I couldn't sympathize with them at all.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written but quite angsty. Overall a good read.

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly I pretty much started losing interest in this story from around page 150 on. I can't even really pin down why.

[Snowtulip · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I enjoyed the second half more than the beginning, cause its just slow moving.

[Rissa (an M/M kinda Girl!!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars bumped up to 4

*review later*