Book Review: Outrun the Rain
During my never-ending search for my next read, I’ve seen N.R. Walker’s name come up constantly on other readers' recommendation lists. I thought it was time to give the popular writer’s books a try to see if lighting would indeed strike or if it was just a lot of hot air.
Official Summary
Tully Larson has loved tropical storms since he was a kid and spent his summers with his dad in the wilds of Kakadu National Park. He’s happiest outdoors, a rough and ready kind of guy who loves the power of Mother Nature and chasing the thrill of electrical storms every chance he gets.
Jeremiah Overton, a fulminologist from Melbourne, chases storms for a whole different reason. Lightning has shaped his entire life and he’s driven to study it, to understand it, so heading to Kakadu in the middle of the storm season is a logical thing to do. After all, the Top End is the lightning capital of Australia.
Tully wasn’t sure how a week at his remote bunker with an academic type would pan out. And Jeremiah didn’t expect much from the storm-chasing cowboy who volunteered to take him.
But both men know all too well that when opposites attract, lightning strikes.
Quick Information
Author: N.R. Walker
Published: June 6, 2023
Genre: M/M Romance, Contemporary Romance
Tropes: Forced Proximity, Instant Love
Review
Outrun the Rain is the first book in N.R. Walker’s The Storm Boys series, and it will probably be my last book from this series unfortunately. Jeremiah Overton is a fulminologist looking to study lightning over the summer and finds himself in need of a guide. Tully Larson is a storm chasing adrenaline junkie who offers to take the scientist out one week to a remote national park in Australia.
Characters are the bread and butter of any story, yet both Jeremiah and Tully feel stale. Tully has only one facial expression: constantly smiling. Every time this character is in the scene (which is the entire book), he’s always making inappropriately timed jokes and awkward flirting (and not the charming kind) with Jeremiah, pushing the limit on how much is too much for the “instant attraction” trope. Tully comes across as one-dimensional in this regard. Jeremiah fares no better with his characterization being all over the place. One moment he's afraid of driving in a jeep, and the next he's trying to reenact Gallipoli by sprinting out into a lightning storm hoping to tempt fate. The scientist comes across as unhinged at times, and not the fun kind. Both of these characters came across as unlikeable, and perhaps most damning, I’m not sure these characters could stand on their own outside of the context of their relationship.
The overall narrative is barely surface deep, giving no real story here outside of the forced proximity. The less than two-hundred pages consist of a constant stream of dialogue that's neither showing, nor really telling us anything beyond “science boy and local boy wanting to get together (for whatever reason) amidst lightning storms”. The book’s pacing drags because the author goes out of her way to fit as much canned dialogue as humanly possible into a single chapter, let alone page, before switching character POVs. So much of the dialogue involves exposition and info-dumping. No topic between these characters is sacred for two men who have literally just met. It comes across as unrealistic and any attempts at chemistry feel artificial and truly forced. The only remotely interesting character reveal comes out suddenly, doesn’t make sense given characters' ages at the time, and before the reader’s able to process what the character’s talking about, we’re already onto the next bout of info-dumping (over a topic that had no business following the prior topic).
The ending, if you could call it one, is where the flimsy narrative falls on its face. The wrap up spans a single chapter, and what happens occurred so fast, I caught myself re-reading the paragraphs to ensure this is actually what the writer was trying to leave us with. All of that baggage aside, the story leaves Jeremiah in an awful state where he is upset and not wanting any part of what is going down. Meanwhile, Tully is elated in Jeremiah’s misery. It also sends the very wrong message where the rich guy gets everything he wants, while the struggling scientist once again is up shit creek without a paddle. Jeremiah was in tears…how is this supposed to leave the reader feeling satisfied, let alone happy for them?
I’m not sure if this is how all of N.R. Walker’s books are written, but if it is, then I am very confused at how this author could be so highly touted. I may attempt to read another one of their books down the line before forming a blanket opinion over their writing style and narrative craft. I hope Outrun the Rain was just a fluke. What started with excitement to read a highly recommended author in the MM genre caused me to walk away immensely disappointed.
Unless you want to read a book that is straight dialogue with no meaningful narrative, characters that feel flatter than a cardboard cutout, and “spicy” scenes that insult the entire romance genre, then I recommend avoiding this book. There are better stories out there deserving of your time and attention.
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