Review: Epic Western Romance
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 20, 2011
`Montana Promises is a western historical romance filled with passion, vengeance, loss and love. An epic adventure ....'A true description of the story.Tressie Majors has seen more hardship in her 17 years than many people experience in a lifetime. She finds herself alone in a miserable shoddy miles from anywhere, with threadbare clothes and hardly any supplies. Her father has long since headed for the gold rush and her mother has just died in agony giving birth to a stillborn baby. As she pats the earth on the grave, she sees a rider approaching through the dust. At first fearful, she soon realises that the man is badly injured and presents no threat. Tressie has learned to deal with life's blows pragmatically and decided to do what she can for him, not sure if he will live or die.Reed Bannon is on the run after stealing a horse. He is half white and half Sioux, but has never known his parents. His trapper father abandoned him at birth, hating him as the cause of the death of his beloved Sioux wife. He is malnourished and has lost a lot of blood when he collapses into Tressie's care.She nurses him back to health and asks him to take her with him to find her father, whom she now hates. She wants her father to know the consequences of abandoning his pregnant wife. Reed is grateful for her help, but believes that she will be safer in her shoddy. He tries to set off without her, but Tressie is resourceful and resolute and follows him.They journey together through inhospitable land and meet adventures and people along the way, overcoming hardship, tragedy and self-doubt, but always with an underlying love and respect for each other.Tressie is a strong woman who gets on with life and meets her challenges head-on. Reed is weighed down by self-doubt, but deep inside is a man of courage and integrity.What sets this book apart is the quality of the narrative. The West was not a pretty, harmless environment and the author brings the dust, stench, disease, death, threadbare poverty and desperation to life on her pages - alongside the beauty of nature and joy, love and integrity of her characters.This is a rewarding story and delivers far more depth than a simple Western romance.