"An excellent story"

Viola Ross is in dire straits. Her drunken husband was murdered late one night coming out of a bar. Now her housemate, friend and partner in the laundry business runs off to get married and takes or sells everything right out from under Viola. Viola only has a couple of options left. One is she can marry Paul Lennox and the second option is she can offer herself to William Donovan. She decides that the second option is the one she can accept and live with even though it means she'll be a fallen woman. There's just something about Paul Lennox that makes her skin crawl. She just can't put her finger on it.

William Donovan has been attracted to his faerie maiden since the first time he saw her. Now he simply cannot believe that Viola Ross is offering herself to him for three glorious months just so she can pay her dead husband's debts and start life anew. William jumps at the chance but can he let her go after three months? He knows he will make sure they are the most enjoyable three months he or she ever lives through.

Viola has heard through the grape vine from the parlor house that Mr. Donovan is a man of quite lustful tastes. When she hears of it she only wants to experience it for herself. Is what they say about him really true? What will he do with and to her?

Not only was this an extremely titillating tale but it told an excellent and engrossing story. I know I couldn't put it down. I thoroughly enjoyed it and eagerly look for more books by the amazing Diane Whiteside.

Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted August 18, 2004

Read an Excerpt

Brava's first western, coming August 2004...

Summary

She fought for survival...
Born to wealth and privilege but now widowed and betrayed on the unforgiving Arizona frontier, Viola Ross finds herself forced to choose between starvation and marriage to her husband's murderer. Instead she takes a scandalous risk: to turn her back on polite society and become the mistress of sensual William Donovan. Donovan, a wagonmaster and panther of a man, is fully capable of defending her with his bullwhip and Bowie knives. She has no idea what else he can do with those big, callused hands—but she's going to find out...

She was a dream who could destroy him...
Donovan is stunned by Viola's offer since he's always seen her as a fairy princess far beyond the reach of any self- made Irish immigrant. Women like her might enjoy an affair with a man like him—and he's more than proven himself in that capacity—but they always reject his offers of marriage. But how will Viola react when she discovers the darkness of his erotic hungers? And once he's sampled her shy beauty, can he bear to let her go? ...

While the killer marshals his forces ...
Even as passion flares to life between Donovan and Viola, a killer seethes in rage. He has other plans for her and summons his allies, including the men who once destroyed Donovan's family. For no Irish Devil is going to stand in his way...