Book Review: “The Brothers of Brigadier Station” by Sarah Williams

Happy November, everyone! I hope your October was great, and that November is just as good (or better)!

I’m back with another book review, and this time I’m reviewing “The Brothers of Brigadier Station” by Sarah Williams! I received this book, in addition to the next two books in the series “The Sky of Brigadier Station” and “The Legacies of Brigadier Station,” from Voracious Readers Only in exchange for an honest review. Here’s a summary so we know what it’s about:

“She came to the outback to marry the love of her life. She just didn’t expect him to be her fiancé’s younger brother.

When Meghan Flanagan, a vet-nurse from Townsville, moves to Brigadier Station in outback Queensland to marry the man of her dreams, she is shocked to discover that perhaps her fiancé isn’t the man she wants waiting for her at the altar. The man she’s destined to marry, just might be his younger brother.

Cautious of women after a disastrous past relationship, Darcy is happy living on his beloved cattle station, spending his spare time riding horses, going to rodeos and campdrafting. He didn’t expect the perfect woman show up on his doorstep. Engaged to his brother.

With the wedding only hours away, Meghan must make the decision of a lifetime. But, her betrayal could tear the family apart. She knows all too well the pain of losing loved ones and being alone.

Now that she has the family she so desperately wants; will she risk losing it all?”

Worldbuilding: 5 out of 5 stars

I don’t know anything about how things work at ranches, but I think the book did a decent job of explaining the general roles and establishing the fact that the community there is really close-knit. This community’s closeness shows through the interactions that the other characters have with each other, as well as how they all know each other well enough to know each other’s general reputations in town. Also, I did like reading all the horse-centric scenes, including the birth of a foal. For those worried about too-graphic details in that scene, it’s not too graphic.

Plot development: 4 out of 5 stars

The overall plot is a little simplistic; girl and guy get engaged, they go meet the guy’s family, girl falls in love with the guy’s brother instead. However, it does mesh nicely with the established character development of our main three characters (Meghan and Darcy, mainly because they are the centerpiece of the plot) and it does work with the worldbuilding of the book, as well as leaving it open enough to sequels (and there are two).

Character development: 5 out of 5 stars

Meghan really established herself as someone with a lot of depth. She doesn’t have a close family of her own, unlike Darcy and Lachlan, but we do see that she has close friends like Jodie to support her. She’s really likeable and gets along well with a lot of the characters pretty fast. I also think she develops and learns to really go with her gut feeling about what she really wants in her relationships, which leads her to Darcy.

Darcy himself is also a well-established character, with the book detailing a general gist of his relationships with Lachlan as well as their differing relationships with their father (who is deceased as of the events of this book) and how it impacts their characters individually. Darcy also slowly gets past the past relationship he had with his ex prior to the events of the book, and good thing he does because he certainly establishes himself as “the one” for Meghan.

For Lachlan, the book did a good job of showing why he shouldn’t be with Meghan, given his drinking habits, his spoilt behaviour, and him just not really giving Meghan the attention she really needs once they go to visit the family and stay there for a while (in preparation for the wedding, partly, and also because Meghan and Lachlan were going to move there permanently post-wedding and so they might as well give Meghan a chance to get to know everyone). However, I do like the fact that he does own up to his mistakes by the end and though justifiably feeling awkward that his ex-fiance is now marrying his brother Darcy, at least he’s on the road to bettering himself. Book Three in the series, “The Legacies of Brigadier Station,” will actually focus more on him, so I’m interested in seeing how he develops in that one when I get to reading it.

There is also a third brother, the youngest, named Noah. Unfortunately, we don’t meet him in person in this book, but the second book in the series, “The Sky of Brigadier Station,” will focus on him, so I’ll leave my critique of his character development until then.

Romance development: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Darcy and Meghan have a nice “meet-cute” sort of moment which quickly blossoms into attraction. I like how they do take the time to get to know each other on a friendship-level prior to actually getting romantic (though this is, in part, due to Meghan already being engaged to Lachlan at the time), and I liked reading the tension of how they had to deal with their feelings for each other while Meghan was already engaged to Lachlan. Darcy himself also had trouble at first picking up on his feelings for her, though it’s understandable given his past rocky relationship, prior to the events of the book. However, the sex scene was so short that it honestly wasn’t needed in the book, and we could just alternatively replace it with a snuggling scene. Please note: You do not need to have a sex scene to establish that they are romantic, even if they are very physically attracted to each other.

The book also does a great job of showing hints for why Lachlan (aka Lachie for short) and Meghan wouldn’t work out. The relationship between Lachie and Meghan isn’t featured in this book very much to begin with, and as the flaws of Lachie accumulate as well as Meghan’s feelings for Darcy, it’s no wonder she immediately fled back home by the day of the supposed-to-happen wedding. There is no sense of feelings to root for Lachlan, as a reader, and it’s quickly established that Darcy is “the one” for Meghan. I’m glad that Lachlan was allowed his moment to acknowledge the awkwardness of his own brother Darcy falling in love with Meghan, however, and I’m also glad he and Darcy got the chance to talk that out close to the end of the book.

Overall, I’m rating this book 4.5 out of 5 stars!

I look forward to reading the next two books in the series, and I hope they’re as good (or maybe better!) than this one.