Thursday 28 March 2024

✪ The Grazier's Son ✪ Cathryn Hein ✪

 

Release date

 
When taking up an unexpected inheritance with an unhappy past, newcomer Stirling is daunted to find a town set against him. Except, perhaps, for one sassy, big-hearted woman, who is willing to give him a chance to prove he belongs. Pitch-perfect rural romance from popular Australian author Cathryn Hein.

When helicopter pilot Stirling Hawley travels to Grassmoor in Victoria's lush Western District to claim an inheritance, he doesn't expect to face a town that hates him.

Nor does he anticipate being saved from near-death by glamorous vintage clothing designer Darcy Sloane. Or that she'll take a personal interest in his recovery. But Grassmoor and Westwind, the historic mansion Stirling inherited from the father he never knew, prove full of surprises.

The more Stirling digs into his father's life, the more uneasy he becomes. Behind Dougal Kildare's respectable stock agent and farmer veneer was a man of secrets. While the fraud that devastated the community and led to Dougal's tragic death is one, there are others. And such things never stay buried forever...

As Stirling's suspicions about Dougal's death grow, danger creeps ever closer. Until it's not only Stirling's life in peril but the woman he's come to love.
 
 
 
 ARC received from Harper Collins Australia for an honest review

Let me first say that I am not usually that big on rural romances - been the city girl who moved to a small country town, got the tshirt to prove it - but there was something about the blurb that made me want to dive right in.

And also, as Cathryn Hein is a new to me author, I went in with no expectations at all.

However I really enjoyed The Grazier's Son.  

As a blow in to a new town, I totally got the vibe of walking into the pub or store and having everyone look at you (not with the vitriol that Stirling copped, but I get it).

And Darcy is just like my friend in town, who wasn't a friend at the time, but knew I was moving to town, and drove past my house every day to see if I was here yet, and now is one of my most wonderful friends.  You get those people who just don't care what everyone else says and makes up their own mind.

And I gotta say, this small of Grassmoor did an amazing job of keeping secrets haha.  That, I will say, does not happen in small towns.  The gossip and rumour mills run rife, just like the did in Grassmoor.  But then, they also gather around and protect their own, just like the do in Grassmoor.

I just get the vibe of the whole place.

I enjoyed Darcy and Stirling's journey, liked how they worked things out with what had happened with his father. Thought the way that their found family had each other's backs.

And loved that they loved.  Loved how they loved. 

I really did thoroughly enjoy their story, and would like more of the secondary characters.

And I will be reading more Cathryn Hein in the future.