This was absolutely the most romantic Ty and Zane book yet, but not the most exciting. They're in that honeymoon phase between "Oh my god, could we actually be together? Really?! Yippee!!!" and "Dammit, you left the milk out. Again. I love you, so, so much, and I'm grateful I get to share my life with you. Really. You're the love of my life. But is it really that damn hard to put the damn milk away before it spoils so I can have some in my damn coffee in the damn morning? Dammit." That honeymoon phase may be the happiest place in the world to be living, together long enough to believe it's real but new enough to be pinch-worthy to make sure you're not dreaming. And yes, that sentence is a deliberate contradiction, because that's what that phase feels like: you believe it and you don't; that's what makes it so magical.Magical to live, but not the most exciting to read. Warm, mushy, "awwww how sweet" reading, yes. And this book was all of those things. It also had an adventure that enabled them to show of their skills and get badly injured, so it was definitely still a T & Z book. I'm happy for them to finally be in this place; they've earned it! And I enjoyed reading about it, I just didn't looooove reading about it. I think Sticks & Stones is still be my favorite because that's the book in which they first start to solidly be a couple, but are still also very new and uncertain of each other. That creates a fundamental tension that makes for edge-of-your-seat excitement. I'm looking forward to Book 8 or 9 when we'll (hopefully) finally get to see them move past the honeymoon and into the real work of staying together and keeping the romance alive over the daily drudgery of years. I love books that look at long-term couples and how they stay together despite the odds, but in this book they haven't yet been together long enough to qualify as long-term.I also found it annoyingly unbelievable that everyone in Texas referred to them as "Ty and Zane", with maybe one exception. People always refer to couples in the order they knew them, so in Texas everyone should have said "Zane and Ty". Maybe I'm too pedantic, but it pulled me out of the story for a moment each time I saw it. Since most of the people in their lives knew Ty first, it makes sense that "Ty and Zane" is the usual order, and I could imagine one of them observing how odd it sounds to hear it the other way. Speaking of unbelievable, I loved that they came out to their families but found the immediate and nearly-universal acceptance unrealistic. I'd have expected more resistance at first, at least from their fathers, even if they came around eventually. Mara and Annie being immediately welcoming made perfect sense to me. And I loved how Chester outed them so matter-of-factly, even if I found it surprising. But Chester tends to be a rather surprising fellow, so okay. I knew so little of Zane's father before that I didn't have as strong an expectation about his reaction, but it did seem to me that he and an awful lot of people in middle-of-nowhere Texas were way more accepting way more easily than I found entirely believable. Earl being so accepting so quickly felt like a plot device, because Zane might never have been able to forgive him if he'd hurt Ty any more than he did. Zane is already struggling to forgive him. But given everything I understood about Earl, I really, really expected him to react more negatively. Of course, I've known real-life situations where the person expected to react the most negatively (and possibly violently) was completely calm and accepting immediately. So I know it happens. That doesn't mean it's believable in fiction.I'm afraid I sound curmudgeonly, and I really don't mean to. I loved this story and loved getting to see Ty and Zane revel in each other for a bit. I just didn't love it as much as Sticks & Stones.
