Home Fires is the fourth and final book in Kate Sherwood's Common Law series and the series goes out with a bang, as in let's blow sh*t up and it is straight-up magnificent. BTW, I finished the last chapters of Home Fires on a plane, followed up by the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt. It was a perfect combination since Home Fires, similar to The Magnificent Seven, is basically the residents banding together to defend their town against a heavily-armed force - in this case, survivalists / militia marching into Mosely to break some of their group out of jail. Just imagine Wade Granger played by Chris Pratt, and you're in the right frame of mind.

Finally, finally, Wade and Jericho are on the same page. Whatever they end up doing, they're doing it together: "In the future, if Wade was going to be in danger, then Jericho would be right beside him. Keeping him safe, hopefully, but at least doing something, being there for whatever happened, good or bad." But first they need to survive an all-out assault by the militia, complete with grenades, rocket launchers and a little something special cooked up by Wade:

“You didn’t like my ‘run away’ plan. Now don’t tell me you don’t like my ‘blow shit up’ plan, either, or my feelings will be hurt.”
Jericho stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. “I fucking love your ‘blow shit up’ plan. Is there more of it?”
“Maybe.”
“I love you.” The words were out before Jericho knew they were coming, and he panicked a little. “Your plans. Your explosions. Your—” Wade was still so calm, but looking back at him with a light in his eyes, a light that Jericho never, ever wanted to extinguish. “Your you,” he finished. “I love you.”
“And you’re not just saying that because we’re both about to die?”
“Maybe I am. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

As endings go, this one is perfect. Wade and Jericho get their HEA underway, Sheriff Kayla Morgan kicks some serious butt and shows the FBI how it's done, the townsfolk band together and Nikki might actually get an honest job. You can almost hear the strains of The Magnificent Seven theme (dum-DA-DA-dum, dum-dum-dum-DA-DA-dum) as they stroll down Main Street. 5 stars for the entire series!

What was THAT?
MAD fucking MAX in Mosely?

Wow, this small town nest has really deserved an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. Because the list of crimes that were committed here is VERY impressive. But THIS LAST sequel exceeded ALL my expectations considering its criminality, it set completely new benchmarks!

Forget the mob from previous sequels, forget feds, forget corrupted cops, forget small and unimportant criminals... HERE it is about THE WAR against the small town. HERE is about to survive. HERE is about the LAST MAN STANDING.

I'd say, we can talk about a genre change here. Militia groups attack a sheriff department to set free the prisoners?! Full armed? In the USA (not in Brasilia or Columbia?) Not a fantasy? Who knows.

It is for sure a great basis for a blockbuster movie, but I don't actually enjoy reading actions. I have to confess, I skimmed through the scenes, where the battle REALLY took place.

But even if I STILL had some eye-roll-moments and skimmed through the battle scenes, I enjoyed the last book pretty much.

And of course the main reason for it were Jericho and Wade. They were BOTH so confident and brave and...SEXY!

I can't just have enough of them. And I forgive this series, or this sequel, all these <i>slightly</i> overloaded events - these two main characters alone made this series worth to read it.

The ending was touching...moving...heart-warming...jericho-wading....

And do you know WHAT? I can imagine that it was not the last time when we see those two guys...

Okay. Wow this book was fabulous and if I sound surprised that's because I am, the previous books while well written and entertaining were not what I really wanted or expected. I'd expected more of a romance with the focus being mainly on Jericho and Wade but this series just wasn't that and it took me a while (two and a half books) to sync up.
That said 'Home Fires' was everything I wanted and more, it started so well:

“Is there any possibility it’s a practical joke?” Jericho Crewe asked. “Or just a rumor, maybe?”
Unfortunately, Sheriff Kayla Morgan shook her head. “I was the one who called them,” she said, leaning back in her battered leather desk chair.
"You called the feds.” Jericho waited a few seconds for the words to make sense, then gave up. “We have feds in town worrying about the border, feds in town still cleaning up the biker mess, feds in town investigating your dad, feds in town trying to catch Wade—and you woke up one morning, looked around, asked yourself, ‘What does this town need more of?’ and the answer you came up with was ‘feds.’ Honestly?”

It started well and just got better, the humour remained throughout, Jericho and Wade are finally openly together (although it's still not a hot and steamy read) and yes the Feds are back in town.
This book never lets up, Wade is brilliant (as always) and it's an exciting action packed read full of the characters we've come to love over the previous three and of course Jericho's dry humour.

"Maybe we could plant some bugs in the conference room while the FBI’s gone,” Jericho tried. “Hockley, you DEA boys got anything like that lying around? Sheriff’s department might be able to come up with two Styrofoam cups and a long piece of string, but they’d probably notice that.”

I don't give 5* often or easily but here I just can't give less. I loved it and I'm hoping for a spinoff.

I voluntarily read a review copy kindly provided by NetGalley and Riptide Publishing.

RATING: 4 out of 5

Home Fires is the final installment of Kate Sherwood’s tetralogy, Common Law – and it is filled with high octane action as the town of Mosely is preparing to defend themselves from the militia fanatics that are going to run down the town to get their friends out of jail. Of course, in the middle of it, is our hero under-sheriff Jericho Crewe who is determined to protect the town, alongside the rest of the Mosely sheriff department, some of citizens, as well as his on-again lover Wade Granger.

Boy, did I LOVE the action part of this book!! Seriously, the moment that Jericho, Kayla, and everyone realize that they are pretty much left alone to defend the town – I was on the edge of my seat!! It is the kind of action-moment that is worth for visual imagery – guns blazing, bullets flying, and of course we have one or two explosions courtesy of Wade.

And Wade is such a badass!! With this series written from Jericho’s perspective, Wade retains a flair of mystery to me as a reader. Much like Jericho, sometimes I wonder if Wade is being genuine or doing his own manipulative way while bending rules here and there to get what he wants. However, there is no doubt in my mind that Wade really does care for Jericho. In this book, Wade has his moment of glory and I loved him for that.

There is a thing or two that I wish has a much ‘concrete’ closure. Now with Jericho is finally ready to be with Wade completely, how are things going with Nikki and the kids? I wish I get a better update on that. I also would like to get a firmer resolution on the corruption case which was introduced in book #1 since it was basically what started everything – in addition to Jericho’s dead father.

In overall this is a SOLID series – and gosh I loved that epilogue *smile*

4* A decent end to this series, which overall, is more small town happenings than out-and-out romance.

Book 4 in this series DOES show our leads working together, mostly on the right side of the law, in order to protect the town where they grew up. It's a tale that I hadn't expected going in, and it took some getting used to when I realised that the romance was a back-burner one, but it was worth the read.

In this last tale, tensions around the area come to a head, with outside forces coming to make things worse, and there are battles and the townspeople rally together. I liked that everyone came together to help the cops/law enforcement, even when their own dealings were shady, and I also liked the vigilante aspect to one part of the tale as the person who got offed deserved that and more.

I did like that the leads got together in this and whilst there were sex scenes, they were very innocent ones and took place mainly off-page/in the reader's imagination. I would have liked more, as the guys had been apart for over 15 years and were still apart due to them being on opposite sides of things, but, I did like how they each protected the other and showed their love in different ways than simply sex.

The tale ends with the leads forging a future together, one that I did believe would work for them. There wasn't anything romantic about it, but these guys weren't the romantic type, so it worked for them. They were happy with simple admissions of love, of caring, of wanting a future together and wanting to be together in all ways.

Home Fires, Common Law 4,  Kate Sherwood

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  romance, LGBTQIA

This is an amazing wrap up to what's been a beautiful quartet, fabulous characters, not just Wade and Jericho (Jay) but so many others, plots that feel so real, and events that are characteristic of small town life.
I’m really sad to see these guys go, and yet I guess there’s potential for Wade and Jay Mark 2. Somehow though I think maybe best to stop at the top – I’ve felt not ready to leave characters before and then author has written more books and they never seem to have that first magic.
Kate is certainly an author that gets searched for now by me, I really enjoy the way she puts a story together, and how each of these reads has ended without cliff hangers (my bugbear) but still had me wanting the next book.
I was really lucky here getting ARCs, as I got the last two together so Tuesday saw me finishing third book, Wed I wrote review and cracked on to book four. With everything fresh in my mind it was such a  great read.
I love to read whole series in one back to back sweep for that very reason, total immersion into the story and characters.

What could I pick out from this book? Wade – I’ve loved him from the start, he’s so enigmatic, so quiet and yet so clever he seems to know what’s going to happen, when and what to do about it.
I get the feeling he’s not exactly a criminal, though the law has been trying to tie him to many crimes, but that he’s one of those guys that sees what needs doing and gets on with it. If that means crossing a few legal issues so be it. Not in the vigilante style, he’s more of a preventative person than a pursuer of justice, if that comes along then great but if not, well he’s not worried.

Jay – a staunch believer in the Law, he’s been in the Army and seen service in some terrible places, been a city cop where life was always busy and he didn't have time to ponder and worry, and now he’s back in Montana, wondering if he and Wade can have something together after all this while.
He’s learning to trust Wade too, to see he’s not just the criminal in waiting his colleagues seem to think.
The sensuality between them is incredible and yet for most of the while its just been looks and quick touches, though it finally heats up here when Jay decides he doesn’t care any more, he wants to be with Wade, and isn’t bothered who knows it.
He’s always been open about his sexuality, but with Wade there’s the history they share – along with Kayla – and the little fact that most of his colleagues feel Wade is on the opposing side of the Law to Jay.  
What I love is they're just ordinary guys, people we could know, live with, work with, meet in the pub. There's no big I'm Gay placard hanging over their mannerisms, no cliched Tells as so many books make. That's what I love, it emulates real life where sometimes its obvious someone is gay through their actions, in the same way sometimes its obvious someone is a bigot, but most of the while people are just people, gay or not is just another facet of their character, not the defining one. And I'll stop drum banging now :-)

There’s some real action in this book, a few deaths too, and a feeling of satisfaction tinged with sadness when its over.
As so often happens maybe if things had been done differently, if the top brass listened to the locals....but life is full of What Ifs, and speculation can’t change results.
I love the mix of small town policing v out of town Important Top Cops ( well seems to be how they regard themselves)
There’s a point where the out of towners, the alphabet cops, are busily engrossed in stopping an upcoming conflict, a mass rally of MC people with guns, rockets, tanks even, and they’re keeping the locals out. Jay is so irritated and Kayla says words to the effect of “go and do some paper work”, or “see if Mr x is trapping the neighbours cats again”, somewhat sarcastically. They know the others are being hoodwinked, yet all their efforts to say so get ignored with a “leave it to the pros “ kind of pat on the head. Kayla and Jay are so frustrated and using irony about the realities of small town policing. Probably for 99.9% of the time it is like that, but when it really matters, and they have the local knowledge to make a difference, save lives, pre-empt disaster and they’re being shut out they’re both upset but stuck.  

A perfect quartet of novels for those readers who want a tender and sensual romance, action and drama but situated in a small town with locals involved, plots that are full of characters that feel real, that have connections, where the law isn’t black and white but shades of grey (50?? Maybe... but no sex accoutrements here. Just solid characters with real emotions).
Each book is complete but together they make up a wider story. I’ve just reread my review of the first book, and my thoughts about the series back then are interesting, and have pretty much played out as i expected.
Its been a series that will definitely be a re-reader for me.

Stars: Five, a fabulous end to the series, perfect wrap up.

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

4.5 Stars Home Fires is a great addition to this series, I won’t put in any spoilers as you need to read this book. I have enjoyed this series and its characters and I will definitely be looking for more books by Kate Sherwood to read.