"terrific western romance"

In 1888 on the ranch of his biological father in the Arizona Territory, Holt McKettrick is waiting for the preacher to arrive to marry him to Margaret when a visitor from his home state of Texas arrives with a note that he carried from friend Frank Corrales. Apparently the man who raised him John Cavanaugh is being dispossessed from his land and his best friend Gabe is going to be hung as a murdering horse thief. He informs his bride to be that they will not marry at least that day, leaves his daughter with her grandfather, and rushes back to Texas to try to save the day.

In San Antonio, Judge Fellows is exasperated with his daughter Lorelei who refuses to wed her fiancé Creighton Banning. Instead as Holt arrives in town, she burns her wedding dress and flees to the dilapidated ranch she inherited from her late mother. Her neighbor Holt helps her and soon they fall in love though her father convicted Gabe and her influential former fiancé has made the bid for John's land.

The follow up to the McKettrick bride trilogy is filled with suspense and action, but belongs to a pair of rowdies who do not believe in love until the emotion slaps each of them in the heart. The story line is fast-paced, but also provides a deep look at late nineteenth century Texas through the colorful cast. Linda Lael Miller provides a terrific western romance that embellishes why this is one of the sub-genre's better miniseries in the last few years.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 28, 2005

Summary

The highly enjoyable latest volume of Miller's popular McKettrick series stars older half-brother Holt McKettrick. Learning that his former Ranger partner, Gabe Navarro, is on the way to the gallows on trumped-up charges and that his foster father, Buffalo Soldier John Cavanagh, is about to lose his land, Holt ditches his mail- order bride at their Arizona Territories altar and rides off to Texas. In San Antonio, he meets a lively lady named Lorelei Fellows, who has just called off her own wedding and burned her bridal gown in the center of town. Thrown out of her father's house, she's hoping to pick up some cattle and start a small ranch of her own. Holt thinks she's out of her mind, but he revises his opinion after watching Lorelei learn to ride a mule named Seesaw, play a cutthroat game of poker, and all in all start to look mighty delectable. Cavanagh's land will be fine and Navarro won't hang—but is Lorelei out of the frying pan into the fire? Her father dies vastly indebted to the landowner who had framed Navarro. Strong characterization and a vivid western setting make for a fine historical romance.