As Big as the Sky by Amy Aislin Release Blitz

Sam McAuley isn’t having a great start to the summer. Served with papers? Great. He’s being sued. Perfect, pristine yard overrun with chickens? What the—? Clearly, the new guy running the animal rehabilitation centre next door has no idea what he’s doing.

It’s one town to the next, one school to the next, one job to the next for Bo Novak. Everything is temporary. Even his current job—running his sister’s animal rehab centre while she’s away on a four-month leave—is temporary. And he does know what he’s doing, thank you very much. Sure, things don’t always run smoothly, but the stick-in-the-mud next door could be a little nicer about it.

One overheard conversation, an olive branch, and a baseball game might show these guys that being at odds isn’t really what they want, and that what they want might just be each other.

Author’s Note: As Big as the Sky was first published in August 2017. This new edition has a brand new cover but no content changes.

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Bo’s shoulders were hunched, his blond hair sticking to his forehead, likely from having worked up a sweat while working in the warm air this morning. His T-shirt clung to him as he took a deep breath and plucked a piece of grass out of the ground.

He looked pensive as he threaded the grass through his fingers. To Sam, he seemed alone and dejected. Sam had always seen him with his head held high and a fiery spark in his eyes. He couldn’t even reconcile this version of Bo with the one he was used to seeing.

Even though he wasn’t at all Sam’s type, Sam had to admit Bo was really cute.

Sam opened his mouth to speak, but Bo’s phone rang before he could say anything. Bo took a look at the caller ID and his shoulders slumped further before he drew them back and answered the call.

“Laura, hey!” Bo’s enthusiasm sounded a bit forced to Sam, but what did he know? “Oh yeah, everything’s great. It’s just me and your chickens right now, and PomPom. Schnee went home yesterday.” He listened for a minute, then said, “I spoke with them yesterday. They’re going to be sending me a pigeon later this week, maybe two. It’s actually pretty quiet right now. May was busier.”

Sam turned to leave, not wanting to intrude, but the sound of his name stopped him.

“Sam’s been great, yeah.” That definitely sounded forced. “Yeah, he helped me fix the lawn mower, just like you said.”

The lawn mower. The one Laura had texted him about a couple days ago, letting him know Bo was going to be coming around for help with it. But Bo never had, probably because on Bo’s first day, when he’d come over to Sam’s to introduce himself, Sam had snapped at him for stepping on his poor seedlings in his front garden.

“Jesus, watch where you’re going! These won’t grow if you trample them. Don’t you pay attention to what’s around you?” That about summed up what Sam had said to interrupt Bo’s friendly, “Hi, I’m Bo!”

Sam had watched Bo’s face fall before he drew himself up—exactly like he had before answering Laura’s call—fisted his hands on his hips and said, “Well, excuse the hell out of me. But who plants flowers right on the edge of the sidewalk? What if a kid on a bicycle accidentally ends up riding over them? You gonna yell at them too?”

It had been a fair question. One Sam hadn’t had an answer to. Not that he expected kids to be biking along on the small gravel sidewalk. Burnhamthorpe Road was a fairly busy street with an eighty-kilometre an hour speed limit. Yet instead of saying so to Bo, he’d rethought his strategy and moved his seedlings up closer to his porch. Just in case.

The question now was, why was Bo lying to Laura? The fact that he was making Sam out to be some helpful, generous neighbour only served to make him feel like a bigger heel for the way he’d treated Bo the past few weeks.

I was really looking forward to being his friend. A fist squeezed his lungs at the thought that he’d so disappointed Bo. Truth was Sam had been looking forward to meeting Bo too, ever since Laura told him Bo was coming to take over running Big Sky for the summer. But then the shit had hit the fan and he’d taken out his frustrations on poor Bo. Who’d only wanted to be his friend.

Bo finally finished his phone call. Setting his phone on the stair behind him, he let out a long breath and went back to staring at the horizon. Sam walked toward him and cleared his throat to get his attention.

When Bo spotted him, his expression went from brooding to annoyed in less than a second. He rolled those big brown eyes and stood.

“Are you kidding me? I fixed my damn fence,” he growled.

“Yeah, I—”

“You might want to check your side because I’m pretty sure that’s where the problem is.”

“I—” know, he tried to say, but Bo interrupted him again.

“Or did you come here to complain about something else? Is PomPom snorting too loudly? Did the water from his pail accidentally get onto your side of the yard? Is there some stench that’s bugging your delicate sense of smell?”

Sam knew he deserved that. He’d done nothing but harp on Bo since he arrived.

“Was my sitting here too loud for you?” Bo kept going. “Is Your Tall Perfectness bothered by the sound of almost non-existent wind in the trees?”

Your Tall—what? Thrown for a moment, it took Sam a second to respond. “I came to apologize.”

That shut Bo up.

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Sarah – ☆☆☆
This is a short, sweet romance. Sam and Bo start their relationship arguing over escaped chickens and ruined flower beds. But when Sam decides to be a better neighbour, he realises he has more in common with Bo than he would have ever expected.

There are some fun moments in this story as Sam and Bo’s interactions move from frustration to attraction. I like the Canadian setting and I like the men’s shared interests. However, Bo feels really young – especially at the start of the book. Even though there isn’t a proper age gap between Sam and Bo, Sam feels much older and more grounded. The dynamic between them works and their relationship quickly settles into gentle domesticity.

I think my main issue with this book is the amount of story crammed into such a short novella. The book attempts to delve deep into all of Bo’s difficult family baggage while also introducing Sam’s extended family, and it is far too much for a 137-page novella. The result is a romance that feels superficial and pretty insta-love. Bo’s personal growth is at the centre of the story but again, his experiences and feelings aren’t explored in enough depth to allow readers to really engage with him.

Amy's lived with her head in the clouds since she first picked up a book as a child, and being fluent in two languages means she's read a lot of books! She first picked up a pen on a rainy day in fourth grade when her class had to stay inside for recess. Tales of treasure hunts with her classmates eventually morphed into love stories between men, and she's been writing ever since. She writes evenings and weekends—or whenever she isn't at her full-time day job saving the planet at Canada's largest environmental non-profit.

An unapologetic introvert, Amy reads too much and socializes too little, with no regrets. She loves connecting with readers. Join her Facebook Group to stay up-to-date on upcoming releases and for access to early teasers, find her on Instagram and Twitter, or sign up for her infrequent newsletter HERE.

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of As Big as the Sky by Amy Aislin to read and review for this tour.