Review: A woman in the search for a greater purpose and a man with his entire community depending on him.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 19, 2014
Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: A woman in the search for a greater purpose and a man with his entire community depending on him.Opening Sentence: He let his mind go blank as he stared at the fire.The Review:This year has been an opportunity to stretch my wings across a wide range of the sub-genres that are incorporated under the heading of Romance. Sometimes I have been surprised at the books that I have read, and other times I have found new authors to follow and a huge backlog of books that I must read. Finally, there have been some portions of the romance world that I just didn’t “get the fascination” other readers did and in this category Western Romance has had prominent space. Part of this I believe was the glut of stories that I read as a teenager.So when Ms. Anderson sent out a tweet on Twitter one day saying that she had books from her Men of White Sandy series available for review, I knew it was time to expand my repertoire yet again this year.This story was well told and the characters were real in a way that is hard to attain. I felt that I was on the rolling plains and I haven’t even visited the “real” west. You see, I’ve only flown over the western United States or had the opportunity to stay in the big cities. This book has encouraged me to make a trip and see the awesome sights that the western portions of our country provides.Our hero, Rebel Runs Fast, is a paradox surrounded by conundrum. He is a cowboy, Indian, artist, and medicine man. Every time I felt that I was truly grasping his character, I was gifted with another layer that is Rebel. While our heroine, Dr. Madeline Mitchell, has layers of her very own that are peeled back as we read their story. Madeline’s baggage and history comes as part of the charm that surrounds this woman.The underlying mystery of this story was well crafted and don’t worry, I will not spoil it for you here. But the final result had me tearing through to the end of this book because I had to know how we would get our happily-ever-after.One word of warning, there is one character and portion of the story that if you are soft hearted like our heroine and me, please make sure you have tissues handy. I didn’t, and I had a miserable cry with no tissues to prevent a mess. Well done to Ms. Anderson, it has been a while since I had a good cry because of what occurred to a character in a book.Many times we are given insights in books that point to future occurrences and this can sometimes ruin a book if it falls too close to a typical story. This is not one of those stories. I am so pleased that I took the opportunity to contact Ms. Anderson. She was gracious in providing me with this book for review.My final verdict on this book is that I truly enjoyed it and it has made me rethink my view of Westerns. If you are looking to stretch your romance wings then this book is a great one to pick up. The rest of the series will also be available shortly in print or you can go ahead and get book 2, Masked Cowboy, in an electronic version today. I will most assuredly be keeping my eye open for other books by Ms. Anderson.FTC Advisory: Samhain Publishing provided me with a copy of Mystic Cowboy. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.