Review: An Ill Wind's a Blowin'
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 13, 2011
This one can be summed up in three words...contrived, lifeless and unbelievable.  Apparently this novella is a follow up to her book "Kiss of the Night Wind" and is designed to further the development of the characters in that book?  If that is the case, it falls far short of its appointed task.  The book is simply lifeless; there is not a spark of excitement generated by the writing or the bland characters.  The author's lack of understanding of the period (late 1870's) is painfully obvious; for example:  heroin's (Ex-Texas Ranger now Marshal) husband departed their home alone four days ago to track down some evil robbers who are escaping into the Colorado wilderness in the dead of winter.  The next door neighbor rides over to see how "the redhead" (endless reference to the protagonist) is doing and asks..."have you heard from him?"  What???  How's she going to hear from him...smoke signals?, her own personal telegraph with him stringing the wires as he goes?, carrier pigeon in his saddlebag?, or perhaps the ubiquitous cell phone (common in those days).  Maybe her husband asks another rancher to put the lives of his family and himself at risk with a two or three day ride back to the ranger's home to deliver the message "Hey Hon!...I'm  fine and dandy!".  Oh, come on!The premise is laughable...  Our heroine,  "the redhead", (a previous outlaw and gang member) is pardoned by the President; and as part of her pardon, she is more or less commanded to marry her (then)Texas Ranger savior.  Right!  This will be their first Christmas together BUT the evil robbers mess up their oh-so-sweet plans and hubby must ride out to find them and bring them to justice.  Now the novella doesn't go into a single shred of detail about the chase and how her husband is faring during said chase, so ANY chance for a bit of excitement is quashed.  Instead, it meanders through the oh-so-mundane daily routine of our heroine as she "carefully", "carefully", "carefully" feeds chickens, cleans up the house, takes care of the cows and horses and carries on contrived and boring conversations with herself while awaiting her husband's return.  She "carefully"  and slowly rides to the neighbors to comfort a little girl shot by the evil robbers and then "CAREFULLY" chops down a Christmas tree and hauls it home to "carefully" decorate (remember 97% of all trips to the emergency room involve household accidents).  God Help Me!!!  Did I forget to tell you...SHE'S PREGNANT (who would have guessed) but Shhhhh! hubby doesn't know. I'm sure that bending over at the waist and chopping down a tree with an axe is something all frontier obstetricians recommended to their patients.  Just do it CAREFULLY.Honestly, I'm not really embellishing this review much at all.  It's all in there and the drama and excitement is so palpable...I could cut it with a knife, (something I considered doing to my Kindle).  Oh!  "And the ending?", you might ask... Well, the ending is about as obvious as the wall I am now slamming my head against so PLEASE, don't let it catch you off guard!Redeeming value if any...It wasn't filled with a million typos.