Review: Hot Sex; Very Little Romance ***Spoiler Alert***
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 23, 2013
This novella is an entertaining read.  It's set in Montana in the 1860's in a small town named Willow Creek.  The writing was pretty good and I didn't really notice any issues with poor editing.  The characters were ok, though I have to say that a whoring, drinking hero isn't exactly my first preference and neither is a promiscuous heroine (but that's just me).  Furthermore, the book just is somewhat lacking in the romance department.  Considering it's supposed to be a historical ROMANCE, that's not a good thing.  Abigail and Morgan are fiercely attracted to each other.  The sex is hot and graphic, and the language pretty explicit.  The two meet in the middle of a saloon brawl.  Morgan gets dragged into the mess, and he ends up arresting Abigail.  The jail is not fit for a woman, so Morgan takes Abigail home with him for the night.  By night number two Abigail and Morgan are having hot, steamy sex.  When first introduced, Abigail's character is misleading........she comes across as a prim and proper little innocent, and describes herself as a "lady," but by day two you come to realize that she is anything but.  Instead, based on her behavior I think, in those days, she'd have been categorized as some kind of "adventuress."  There were also parts of the plot that I thought were a bit improbable.  Morgan is suspicious of Abigail.  He believes she is hiding something, but when he questions her she denies any wrongdoing.  Although Morgan doesn't believe a word Abigail's told him, he marries her without having determined anything about her past.  I didn't find that very believable......I mean what kind of lawman is he?  Evetually, of course, Abigail's past catches up to her.  ***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER*** Turns out our little Abigail was a rich man's kept woman and was skirting on the wrong side of the law.  Her ex-lover, Fletcher, was a con man and used Abigail to fleece rich, unsuspecting men.  He literally "pimped" her out.  Abigail fled after their last job when Fletcher got her implicated in a murder, and she has been on the run ever since.  ***END OF SPOILER***  Of course, by the end of the book all is resolved and Abigail and Morgan get their HEA.  I dont think the author did a very good job of redeeming Abigail's character, and so I didnt really like her that much.  To me the fact that she had run away from her old life of crime and turned over a new leaf because she had to, as opposed to because she wanted to, was not impressive.  I think I would have liked Abigail better had we been given a rational reason as to why she fell into the life she had with Fletcher in the first place.  As it is, we are left to believe that she just chose to be a rich man's plaything because she wanted to, and I don't find that admirable.  I've read books where the heroine is a prostitue and because of the way the character is portrayed I absolutely loved them!  In this book, I think the author missed the boat with Abigail's character.