Ami's Hoard

3.5 stars

The book page for Lone Star on a Cowboy Heart over at LT3P Website clearly stated "relationship between Sam (biromantic heterosexual) and Montgomery (aromantic asexual), and includes scenes between Sam and a female partner."

Just in case you don't know what aromantic asexual is, well it's a person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others, in addition to having no/little sexual attraction. So I went in knowing for sure that there won't be romance (in a traditional way) between Sam and Montgomery.

Instead, I focused on their friendship ... as well as what seemed to be the grand theme of this novella: loneliness. I found it pretty compelling. I loved the friendship part and how Sam and Montgomery connected. I always have this enthusiasm to read about "all the lonely people". I genuinely thought Crosswell was able to paint Sam and Montgomery's loneliness pretty well. The part where Montgomery called his ex-wife, who used to be his best friend until they separated because he wasn't interested in that sexual/romantic aspect of their relationship ... that scene just hit me in all the right places.

I wasn't sure with Montgomery's stance with the robbing/killing part of the story. Plus what he did in the end was rather stupid, IMHO. While Sam ... somehow he didn't come out of this novella as pretty competent deputy (oh, and he also felt a bit needy). But I could still say that I really liked it because of how the loneliness theme resonated with me. That kind of connection with a book (over characters or plot) is always what matters to me as a reader.