Bright Horizon

Pine Cove, Book 4

By: HJ Welch

Narrated by: Nick J. Russo

Ben Turner is besotted with the handsome older man who’s always in his bakery. They have nothing in common...until one day Ben discovers he's an overnight millionaire, and his customer could become his protector. But they hardly know each other. He'd be crazy to accept his help, right?

Lawyer Elias Solomon knows his crush on the beautiful young baker is ridiculous, but when he suspects Ben is being taken advantage of, he can't help but step in. Elias' upcoming 40th birthday has made him adventurous, but he never imagined he'd accompany Ben all the way to England.

Ben has never even heard of his great-grandmother Nancy, his corrupt and bitter English family, their enormous home and orchard grounds, or the business they run from it. All of which he now apparently owns. It's up to Ben to save the estate with Elias' help, but does he want the responsibility? All he really wants is to fall into Elias' bed and never leave, and soon the chemistry is too much to ignore. Elias can't see how they'll make it work when they're from different generations. But when old rivalries take a dangerous turn, he soon realizes he'll do anything to keep Ben safe from harm...and in his arms.

Book Four of Pine Cove. Bright Horizon is a steamy, standalone MM romance novel with a guaranteed HEA and absolutely no cliffhanger.

©2019 HJ Welch (P)2020 HJ Welch

Fun and interesting story for these two. A diversion from the family that this book starts with.

This is one of the first books where the whole book pretty much take a week by the time you get to the last couple of chapters. These two were adorable together. How long it took them to get together. The age difference and the self doubt.

Age gap, slow burn, sweet romance

Ben works at a local bakery and has a mad crush on one of his customers. Elias is a lawyer who thinks the baker at the local bakery is gorgeous. One day a man shows up at the bakery and tells Ben his great grandmother has passed away and left her estate to him. Ben didn’t even know he had a great grandmother... Elias happens to be at the bakery and offers his services to Ben. They hop on a plane to England to meet Ben’s long lost family. When they get there Ben learns that some of them are not happy about Ben getting everything. His family is awful. They are beyond rude to him and treat him awfully. Ben finds out truths about his grandfather he never knew about. And while all of this is happening he and Elias are falling for each other. It’s definitely a slow burn. There is an age gap between the 2 men. We also learn of a health condition Elias is dealing with. Ben becomes friends with 2 of his cousins that end up helping him figure out how to take down his uncle that wants to keep Ben from getting what is his. I haven’t listened to the other books in the series but it didn’t matter. This one is a stand alone. Nick J Russo’s narration was good! I was never confused with who was talking. Especially when it came to all the family members.

So good!!!

All I can say is that I didn’t want it to end!!!! I want a whole series based on Ben & Elias!!!

Almost Didn’t Make It

Quite frankly, this one was tough for me to get through. I loved the characters overall, but there was something about the story that just didn’t quite do it for me...until the Epilogue. Saved the whole book for me. It wasn’t bad, but it took me over a week to get through some of the chapters. Ben finally getting some nerve helped immensely though. Overall I would recommend!

Really enjoyed this story and great performance

I was given a free audio copy from the author and the GRR arc team for review.

Narrator kept a good pace, pleasant voice that suited the characters, expressed emotions and did all the different voice. Fabulous performance.

This is book 4 but can be read as a standalone. I have not read any of the previous books. I really enjoyed this story. It was sweet and entertaining with some drama. It kept my interest and I wanted to keep listening from start to finish. The characters were great. Though Ben frustrated me a few times for being too gullible. Though I loved how when Elias was with him he took care of him. 😍 They had fantastic chemistry. This book was on the longer side but didn't feel draggy at all. There's little angst and little heat. It was well written and had interesting plot. One of the characters is HIV positive which I know nothing about but some things said had me questioning medical confidentiality and I tried to look it up but couldn't get an answer. So that still has me wondering. Also, I would have handled the entire situation with the family differently. It didn't feel believable, so that's the only reason why I kept my rating at 4. Though I suppose there wouldn't have been a book if things were handled in a more believable manner. So while it was a little far fetched, it was a great read. I would definitely recommend it and I look forward to reading more from this author. It was my first time reading them.

Suspend your disbelief & go with the flow to enjoy

I'd give this 3.5 stars. I enjoyed some parts of it quite a bit and laughed out loud more than once. It's very romantic. It also required quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, as I'm pretty sure that most of it is fairly unrealistic. I could be wrong of course, but it did seem a bit unrealistic to me. But fiction is fiction, so I'd say that if you're willing to be in on the fairy tale of it, you can go for it.
So far as the lead characters, I did feel like Elias was portrayed as being older than he really was and that was a tad distracting for me. He was only 39 and by my math from various references in the book, he was born in 1980, right at the cusp between Gen-X and the Millennials, but he read more like someone born about 10 years earlier in some ways. On the opposite side though, I didn't mind Ben's immaturity for the most part, because he was still living with his parents and had been pretty sheltered. He also observed at one point that he might end up being a mess still at 40. As someone who is still a mess in her 40s, I sympathize with him. Both he and Elias spent a lot of energy internally debating ridiculous doubts, and I don't know if people really do that much ruminating, but maybe they do, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I enjoyed the "good guys" of the story, even though I found the "bad guys" so terrible as to be probably unrealistic, but at least they were fun to dislike.
For the audiobook version, the narration was quite enjoyable. As an American, I don't know if the narrator got the British accents right, but I liked them perfectly well.

Sweet love story

This was a new to me author. Elias is a lawyer looking for a slower pace and Ben is a young baker living his best life. However in a split second Ben becomes a millionaire and finds he has a ton of unknown family - and they hate him before even meeting him. Fortunately Elias is there to help his crush Ben navigate these new circumstances and they discover their mutual crushes. This was a very sweet story with several twists and turns you don’t see coming. There were points that it was a bit drawn out but overall was enjoyable. The narration was amazing - will be looking for this narrator in the future. Grab this audio and enjoy the love story of Ben and Elias and the antics of Luna and Trequil to make you laugh

Good Addition

Overall it's a good listen, I do wish we had more of the family story I felt like that got a little glossed over but otherwise the narration is done well and it was an enjoyable story.

A sweet opposites attract

This was a sweet opposites attract, contemporary romance.

The characters were likeable and well fleshed out and the writing style was engaging and compelling.

The storyline was interesting and narration was enjoyable and appealed to me.

Fascinating

What a tale! Everyone dreams about coming into money, as did the main character in this book. It didn't go as he planned but what does! There were many insights to British law and how things operate over the pond. I loved the interactions of the characters and the storyline that twined around them.