N.R. Walker used to be one of my go-to authors, but very few of her recent titles have worked for me. I think the last book of hers that wowed me was 2019’s Tallowwood, but I pick up her books occasionally, hoping to find the emotional depth and complex characters that used to characterise her work. Recalling the detail of the farming lifestyle and the wonderful imagery she brought to her contemporary Red Dirt series, I had high hopes for The Men From Echo Creek, an historical romance set in the Snowy Mountain region of Australia in the early 1880s, but sadly, they were dashed. The Men From Echo Creek isn’t a bad book by any means, and if you’re looking for a low-angst, low-stakes, low… everything romance, it might be right up your alley. But it wasn’t what I was looking for.

When nineteen-year-old Albie Bramwell inherits his father’s two-thousand hectare mountain farm, the last thing he expects is for four of the farm hands to tell him they don’t want to work for him because he’s too young and inexperienced. It’s a shock that these men, whom he’s known for years, would abandon him on the day of his father’s funeral, but he’s determined to keep the farm going and show everyone that he’s just as much of a man as his father was, even though he has has no idea where to start. He’d imagined he’d have longer to learn the ropes under his father’s tutelage, but now he’s on his own with only two farmhands left, Des, who walks with a limp due to an injury, and Robert, a recovering alcoholic Albie’s father had helped straighten himself out.

A few days later, Albie rides into the nearest town, Alpine Falls, to pick up supplies and to put the word around that he’s looking to hire more men. As he’s tethering his horses outside the hotel where he’s staying the night, a feral dog appears from nowhere, its barking and snapping spooking both animals; one of them is on the verge of bolting when someone races up and grabs its tether, speaking quietly and quickly soothing the frightened horse. The man, who looks to be about Albie’s age, introduces himself as Percy Collins and says he’s looking for work; the next morning, Albie offers him a job at Echo Creek.

Percy quickly sets about making himself indispensible. He works hard, doesn’t mind what he does and endears himself to Des and Rob by being a much better cook than Albie! They’re strongly attracted to each other, although neither really knows what to do about it – or even if they should do anything about it, but longing looks and glancing touches turn into passionate kisses, pleasureable exploration and love as the weeks and months pass.

The romance between Albie and Percy builds slowly, which feels right for the time-period and for who they are. They’re young and sexually inexperienced and, given the absence of anyone to tell them otherwise, have wondered if perhaps they’re the only man who feels attracted to other men so they’re naturally cautious about making their interest in the other known. That aspect of their relationship is nicely done, but there’s very little romantic chemistry between them, and I just couldn’t buy them as being in love. Friends, yes, but more than that? No.

The characterisation lacks depth and complexity overall, although I did appreciate the depiction of Albie’s insecurities about his ability to run the farm successfully and how the cruel comments of others about his youth affect him. But apart from that, the characters are barely two-dimensional; we learn almost nothing of Albie’s backstory or anything about his father, and while there’s a little bit of mystery surrounding Percy to begin with, it’s dealt with quickly and doesn’t really have much bearing on the story – other than that his having had an education means he can help Albie with his reading and the farm accounts. (Oh, and he learned he doesn’t really like girls.) There no background supplied for Des or Robert, despite their being major secondary characters, and although there’s a little conflict promised in the form of the Big Bad – who owns the land that adjoins Albie’s – it fizzles out really quickly despite the build-up.

In addition to the lack of chemistry and conflict is the lack of atmosphere – in fact, I had to keep reminding myself that the story is set in Australia – and detail about life on the farm. I’ve already made the comparison between this book and the same author’s Red Dirt series, and to that I’ll add Jay Hogan’s current Mackenzie Country series, in which she brilliantly depicts life on a remote, New Zealand sheep station. I’d hoped for a similar level of detail about the lives of the people living and working on the farm in The Men From Echo Creek, but it’s just not there. Farming two-thousand hectares of mountain country without modern machinery and living without modern conveniences must surely have made for a very hard life, but we’re given no real indication of that – and I had to wonder how only four men could possibly manage it, especially given that one of them (Albie) has to spend time inside the house cooking, cleaning and doing accounts rather than working outside, and another (Des) has physical limitations. The best part of the story comes quite late on when the four of them ride out to round up a ‘mob’ of Brumbies (wild horses) – the exhilaration of the chase, the skill of the capture and the freedom afforded by being away from responsibility, albeit for a short time, come through really strongly.

There are plenty of four and five star reviews on Goodreads that disagree with my assessment, but The Men From Echo Creek is bland, overly sweet and lacking in emotional depth. ‘Vibes over plot’ romances seem to be in vogue right now – I don’t know if that’s a reaction to the stresses of modern life or something else (authors needing to publish three or four books a year maybe?) – but to pull them off successfully, the author has to get me invested in the characters and their situations (see We Could Be So Good) and N.R. Walker just doesn’t do that here. With more misses than hits in her recent oeuvre, it’s probably time for me to accept that her books are no longer for me and move on.