Review: Wow - What a Good Read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 1, 2013
This story of a budding romance has qualities and a texture that are rare, especially when set against an early western backdrop. Royce is the roughneck vagabond, proud of his worthless family line and the hard-drinking, punch-in-the-face life that has delivered him to an ill fate he rightly earned. At his lowest point, he finds a strong willed, not-so-young woman, who has been battered by tragedies, not of her making. They don't deserve each other. She deserves better and he nothing. Even the devil refuses to take his soul, yet there is something very moving in how Royce and Cleantha come to need each other, and Bell presents that in beautifully styled pages that speak to the reader's heart. This sweet, sometimes sad story explores emotions so genuine and eloquent that the reader cannot escape without sharing the heartache and desire that drives its characters.Bell eschews the setting one might expect in a western. There are no cattle drives through Dodge City or shootouts in the street. Instead, her canvas is a small town, nestled in the mountains of Oregon, and she lets you smell the fragrance of pines, feel the cool air, and taste the dust of dirt roads. And yet, there is an element of danger and intrigue as well as a smattering of humor. Dialogue is salted with a blend of Irish brogue and backwoods twang, which I found refreshing when compared to the norm. I must say that Dorothy Bell knows how to write a steamy love scene, and she does it in a way that respects the passion and emotions that drive it. The Reprobate is a love story, yes, but it is also a story of second chances and much more, and I'm glad I got to read it.