April 20, 2021

I am a gigantic fan of Boys of the Bayou. I’ve mentioned in several reviews of the original series how much the Landry family feels welcoming and how a story set in Autre feels like visiting home.

So, imagine how excited I was that there is a new spinoff series, Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild. The author cleverly hinted at the possibility in Four Weddings and a Swamp Boat Tour by introducing grumpy Griffin, Mitch’s roommate, and Tori’s co-worker.

Side note: If you haven’t read any of these books, get started with My Best Friend’s Mardi Gras Wedding. Your enjoyment will be infinitely multiplied with the background on the Landry family that has been built over previous books.

About Griffin: he’s a grumpy bastard, pretty much by his own admission. He definitely prefers animals over humans. Honestly, who can blame him? Haven’t we all felt that way at one time?

What was hysterical to me is that the animals seem to return the favor – he is their favorite human. The otters adore him, the llamas respect him…and then there’s Sugar.

Sugar gets a special mention because she happens to be one of the funniest characters I have read in a long time. Her personality comes across clear and strong.

Charlie should also get a mention in here because the story is half hers. Just like the other women in the Landry family, she’s equal parts sass and strength, but with a vulnerability that makes her more appealing.

That’s another strength of the author. Her female characters are not perfect by any stretch. They’re not the shining ingenue who the reader loves to hate. Nowhere close.

Charlie, just like Tori, Maggie, Kennedy, and the other Landry women (either by blood or by marriage), is somebody I want to know. I want to be able to hang out with her, commiserating over lost jobs and obnoxious men, sharing Bayou gossip, and grilling her on the sexy times.

And oh, those sexy times. It’s a wonder Charlie and Griffin didn’t set the barn on fire. Yet another strength of the author – making me feel that pit in my stomach of a new love being explored in the most delicious ways.

I could go on and on about how many different things I liked about this book and highlight all of the parts that made me laugh, swoon, and even tear up.

But truly, you should just pick up the book and lose yourself in the Bayou. As I said earlier, this can be read as a standalone romance, but you’d be better to start with the first in the original series.

Do it for Gus, Al Pacacino, Bobby and Cindy, and (of course) for Sugar.

Treat yourself. You deserve it.

This was a challenging read for me. On the one hand there was a lot of spooky build up, but it started so slowly that I almost gave up on it.

I guess the first thing that I can say is to stick with it, because it does eventually start to all make sense and ended up being a suspenseful psych thriller.

Let’s get the so-so out of the way (because none of it was actually bad). There is a lot of set-up in the first few chapters, and it took me quite a while to start putting the pieces together.

In addition to the family moving to a new area, there seemed to be tension between various family members. This was another thing that was not totally clear to me at the onset but made more sense further on in the book.

In a way, that was really the only challenge – getting through the set-up to where everything took off and it became more interesting.

Because it did get very interesting.

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3uLT3FC
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3mJxNgO

There are enough reviews out there that detail the things that happen to the family – even the blurb tells you some of them.

I’m just here to say that the author does a very good job of building the tension as these “tricks” get more sinister and Bram tries to keep his family together even as he realizes there are things he doesn’t know.

When this started to happen, I almost felt claustrophobic because I knew that the terror was building but couldn’t figure out where it was all going to break.

It ended up with a few surprises, and I’m glad I stuck with it.

About Jane Renshaw:

As a child, Jane spent a lot of time in elaborate Lego worlds populated by tiny plastic animals and people. Crime levels were high, especially after the Dragon brothers set themselves up as vets and started murdering the animals in their ‘care’. (They got away with it by propping the victims up with Plasticine and pretending they were still alive…)

As an adult, she is still playing in imaginary worlds and putting her characters through hell – but now she can call it ‘writing’ and convince herself that she is doing something sensible. In real life, she has a PhD in genetics and copy-edits scientific and medical journals.
Jane is the author of Watch Over Me. NO PLACE LIKE HOME will be her third novel published with Inkubator Books.