Switcheroo by Cheyenne Blue is an opposites-attract contemporary romance that made me all mushy and left me longing to camo under the stars in Outback Australia.
Hayley Reed is a New Yorker born and bred. She lives in a tiny apartment and has to work two jobs to survive. She’s so over it all. When an ad in a magazine catches her eye she decides to go for it. Swapping lives with someone for a year sounds like an excellent way to shake things up. Maybe she’ll get sent to a small town in Texas or a ski resort in Colorado? Never in her wildest dreams did she think she would end up at a cattle station in the middle of Outback Australia, with nothing but dust to see for miles. There’s also the fact that she’s being mentored by an attractive butch station hand that seems to dislike.
Jenna Dwyer loves her job, loves Ghost Gum Station where she lives and works, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. What she doesn’t love is mentoring the clueless American who can’t even ride a horse. This is her she doesn’t need the cute American here complicating things. But soon keeping Hayley at arm’s length becomes difficult, because Hayley is really trying her best, and did she mention the cuteness?
With long days spent working together under endless skies, can two women so different really connect and if they do can they sustain it?
Writing
It has been a while since I’ve read a book by this author, I’ve always enjoyed her writing style but it seems that Cheyenne Blue has upped her game. The writing in this book is beautiful. The descriptions of places and the character’s surroundings had me picturing it all in my mind. Blue built a slow chemistry between the characters that started with a connection of friendship and then exploded into want, lust, and longing. Because of this, the love that blossoms between them is strong and true. The way Blue shows the reader, the struggles and obstacles during the story is brilliant, the anguish is pretty low but this author still managed to make me cry with all the deep feelings she conveyed through Hayely and Jenna.
Pros And My Favourite Parts
I adore this book, I’m sure it’s the first book I’ve read with the unique trope of a life swap, which made this story feel exciting.
Hayley and Jenna are complete opposites. One a city girl used to the hustle and bustle of New York. The other used to quiet, endless landscapes, never interacting with more than twenty people in a day. Yet once they let their guards down the connection between them is gorgeous.
I enjoyed the aspect of Hayley and Jenna’s romance being on borrowed time. Hayley is only there for a year, so it makes sense that they both try to keep their feelings in check. The aspect of just enjoying a person who is in your life for a short time is lovely and achievable for some. But you can tell that the more time this pair spends together, the harder they fall.
Another thing I love about this book is the play on the title Switcheroo. The theme carries through the book, switching lives, switching opinions, switching feelings. But my absolute favourite is the switch that happens with the characters. For more than half of this book, Jenna is portrayed as a standoffish, aloof character. Hayley is more open, likes to talk about things, and is open to new experiences. However, falling for Jenna changes Hayley she suddenly can’t cope with all those feelings and starts to keep Jenna at arm’s length. The aloof Jenna opens up under her feelings for Hayley. This obviously causes some anguish, but it is sweet anguish, and that’s due to the author handling it so well and me as a reading knowing that Hayley and Jenna are just meant to be.
Heads Up
Nothing I can think of.
The Conclusion
Switcheroo is a beautiful, low-angst read. It has two main characters that have wonderful, believable arcs and will make you fall in love with them. I adored the setting and the author did a fabulous job at describing the setting of Outback Australia, the cattle station, and the workers. There is an amazingly colourful cast of extras to get to know and love. I know this is going to be one of my comfort reads.
I read this book in a day. Once I started I was dragged in and didn’t want to stop. Hayley and Jenna won me over quickly and I simply had to know their story. I smiled, happy sighed, and giggled my way through it, I even shed a tear. When I was done I was left with that lovely warm, mushy feeling safe in the knowledge that two characters I had come to love had gotten their happily ever after.
Excerpt from Switcheroo by Cheyenne Blue
She raised her head and looked around. A small truck cab, rather dirty. Outside, the scenery was the same bland, flat, red dirt that covered the inside of the truck. She groaned. Australia. She was on what was hopefully the last leg of her journey to Ghost Gum Station. And the person on her right… She cranked her head around, smothering another groan as her neck spasmed.
Jenna. The rangy, suntanned woman who’d picked her up from the airport. Chantelle’s best friend, which meant she’d be seeing a lot of her over the next year. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. While Jenna had so far been helpful, she also seemed amused at Hayley’s reaction to Australia. Suck it, Jenna. I may not have left America before, but I’m not sure you’ve travelled much either. She wasn’t sure what Jenna did at Ghost Gum Station, other than the same sort of manual work that she’d be doing.
Eventually. She yawned again. If she could stay awake.
Her mouth was dryer than the Nevada desert. Not that she’d ever been there, but her mouth was as parched as she imagined that desert to be. She took another look around. Certainly as dry as this desert. Probably as ugly as this desert.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any water?”
Without taking her eyes from the dirt road, Jenna reached down and hauled an enormous foam-covered canteen to the seat. Her forearm corded with the effort. “No one goes anywhere out here without water.”
“Thanks.” Hayley poured a cup and at the third attempt in the bouncing pickup got it to her mouth. It smelled weird, but it was cool. The truck jolted and half of it went down her front. “How long was I asleep?”
“Nearly two hours. But we’ve only about twenty more minutes to go. We’re now on Ghost Gum Station.”
That made the station about three hours from Mount Isa. Hayley wished she’d studied the map more. Thoughts of nipping to town for a beer or a wander around the stores vanished. No wonder Jenna had asked if she needed anything.
The truck’s aircon blasted cool, but several flies perched on the dash. Hayley wound down the window and tried to wave them out.
“You’re on a losing wicket with the flies,” Jenna said. “You’ve let more in than went out. The Aussie bushfly is a fact of life. Better get used to it.”
Hayley wound up the window as she tried to figure out what Jenna had said in her harsh accent. What was a losing wicket? And why would she have to get used to flies? Surely there was bug spray. It didn’t seem savvy to mention that right now, though. “So this is home, huh?” It didn’t look any different from anywhere else she’d seen so far. A spiral of dust rose and twisted across the land for a few seconds before falling back.
“Yeah. This is the top paddock. It stretches from the highway to the homestead. The other side’s the long paddock. Then there’s the bottom paddock. Each is thousands of hectares.”
She sifted through Jenna’s words trying to understand them. Thousands of hectares for one ranch? One station, she amended. And no one in sight. “I can’t see any cows.”
“The cattle will be here somewhere. A few of them have GPS trackers, so we know where they are.” Jenna skirted a deep rut that took up half the track.
“And I’ll be working with these cows?”
“Eventually. Not at first. It can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Dangerous was a bar fight in The Bronx. With guns. Or jaywalking on Canal Street. Danger had just been redefined. For a moment, she wished she was back in Working Overtime, joking with Mad, flirting with customers. Would any of them miss her? Unlikely.
Jenna steered the truck around a rolling tumbleweed. All that was missing was a showdown at the O.K. Corral. Hayley looked around. As far as she could see, there was no sign of civilisation: no houses, nothing that passed for a street, nothing except a single-lane dirt road that meandered along its own path, one she couldn’t see reason for. No vehicles, except the old truck she sat in, no people, except Jenna. She shuddered, wishing Mad hadn’t talked her into watching Wolf Creek last week. The movie about a serial killer in the outback was suddenly all too real.
A picture of her block flashed through her mind complete with the roar of traffic, the hiss of espresso machines, and a hundred conversations all carried out at full volume. A pang gripped her, but she pushed it aside. This was an adventure, and she sure as hell would make the most of it.
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Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 978-3963248866
Publisher: Ylva Publishing
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