Book Reviews

Book Blurb

When two young ladies and a young man are kidnapped, it sets a chain of events in motion no one could have foreseen.

When Yvonne Blackthorne and her traveling companions, Kaede Naito and Jose Delgado, are kidnapped, it sets in motion a chain of events that will forever alter the small town of Aspen Grove, Colorado.

Determined to rescue his sister, Constantine Gaylord Blackthorne sends Rei Naito--brother of Kaede--to find a well-known bounty hunter, Arizona Slim, to help rescue both girls.

But things are a lot more complicated than any of them expected and before it's all over with, they will need all their skill to track down the vicious Tanner Gang and see them brought to justice.

Book Review

Colorado, around the time of the gold rush that started in the late 1850s and continued to the early 1860s, must have been quite the adventurous time. And with this book starting in 1869 with the promise of kidnappings, daring rescues, bounty hunters, and a gang that needs to be brought to justice, I was looking forward to a good old-fashioned Western – with a twist or two. First, there is the blurb which promises complications. Then, there is the author’s note about the series that describes the setting as “Aspen Grove, a small town in the Colorado Rockies where big things happen.” And finally, it became clear to me after reading the first chapter the characters were going to be colorful, quirky, and their shenanigans promised to be very entertaining.

Constantine Gaylord Blackthorne is a man I somehow expected to be a respectable, upstanding, and possibly slightly boring guy – just based on his name - but I should have known better. CeeGee, as his friends call him, is an adventurer of the first order, a man who goes after what he wants, and who is extremely loyal to his friends. He is also very different from most of his compatriots: he prefers the company of men, and he can sense the future. And while the first is a carefully hidden secret, the second is an extremely useful ability to have and as well hidden. Not that it keeps him out of trouble completely… but it does help with figuring out what to invest in and how to fix things that have gone off the rails.

Lukas Hartmann is a newish friend of CeeGee’s and I met him as he was preparing for CeeGee’s new business venture – running a saloon. CeeGee brought the “girls” with him from the more civilized East, and Lukas has scoped out the town for him. As it turns out, Lukas also prefers men, not that anyone knows, and he has an ability to read people’s minds. This enables him to discover the crookedness of the other saloon owner in town, the fact that the sheriff is likely in cahoots with some bad guys, and that some of the men in the town can shield their minds.

Naito Rei, as a Japanese man often mistaken for being Chinese, has a tough time finding work, never mind being accepted with all the prejudice against “non-whites” that was well established in the US at the end of the 19th century. He is a samurai now trying to make a living for himself and his sister, and comes in very useful when she and several others are kidnapped. He is an honorable man, brave, and doesn’t mind hard work. Ideal capabilities to have when building a new town out of pretty much nothing with a sordid past.

Joshua Maxwell, aka Arizona Slim, is a well-known bounty hunter on a mission. He’s hunting a criminal whose involvement in the story is gradually revealed, but I was just as interested in finding out more about him as a man. Then there are the saloon girls who work for CeeGee, the other town inhabitants, and so many others. It was a joy to get to know all of them and to see how they were involved in each other’s lives.

As you can imagine, this creative assortment of characters – and these three are just the start - leads to a story that goes from an intriguing beginning into a suspenseful tale that had me hanging on to find out the solution of the criminal elements, but even more to figure out what exactly these men and women are capable of and how they would use it to help them, and make Aspen Grove into a better place. A very promising beginning to what I hope to be a continuing series!
If you like historicals with a twist that are set in an alternate past, if men and women who struggle against enemies who want them dead are your thing, and if you’re looking for a read with lots of adventure and danger as well as a touch of passion and romance, then you will probably like this novel. I really hope the next volume will be out soon!

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Fireborn Publishing for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 412 pages/92890 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	05-February-2016
Price	$5.99 ebook, $12.99 paperback
Buy Link	http://firebornpublishing.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_bookx_info&cPath=1_18&products_id=17