Dear Reader,
I never enjoyed being a wanted man until the day Miss Esmerelda Fine marched into the Tumbleweed Saloon and pointed her derringer straight at my heart. Who would have guessed some duke's granddaughter--an awfully pretty one at that--would come gunning for the likes of me, a notorious bounty hunter with a taste for whiskey and a fondness for peach pie? Lucky for me, she was a mighty poor shot. Instead of killing me, she hired me to find her runaway brother. Little did she know she was about to make the acquaintance of a flea-bitten basset hound named Sadie, the infamous Darling Gang, and my shotgun-toting kinfolk. And little did I know she was about to lead me on a merry chase that would take us from a bungled bank robbery to the very first Wild West show to tour London, England.
I should have turned down her offer. I should have resisted her charms. But I didn't.
Because there comes a time in every man's life when he's got nothing left to lose...but his heart.
Yours,
Billy Darling
From the Paperback edition.
1 of 1 copy available
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
April 20, 2011 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780307785428
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780307785428
- File size: 2271 KB
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
March 30, 1998
Love stories between educated spinsters and cowboy rogues set in towns with silly names seem to be the romance-western flavor of the year. Millie Criswell's Dangerous matched a short, bounty-hunting horticulturist with a rangy Texas Ranger. In Calamity, N.Mex., Medeiros leaves time-travel mode to pit another hero in "sinfully tight... Levi's" against a reedy music teacher. Esmerelda Fine, the impoverished granddaughter of a duke, has sold her Boston music school to track down the varmint who murdered her little brother, Bartholomew. That grizzled outlaw turns out to be tall, handsome Billy Darling, "part legend and all man," who lives in a whorehouse--Miss Mellie's Boardinghouse for Young Ladies of Good Reputation. With Billy's help, Esmerelda discovers that her brother isn't dead, but has metamorphosed into the notorious "Black Bart", who breaks laws in order to research dime novels. Medeiros's outstanding sense of humor, sexual tension and steamy passion save a silly plot, which seems artificially prolonged when the duke takes Esmerelda to London and Billy follows, in a traveling Wild West show. -
February 15, 1998
When determined Esmeralda Fine arrives in dusty Calamity, New Mexico, in search of gunslinger Billy Darling, she has vengeance and murder in mind. The handsome outlaw is not quite what she expected, however, and suddenly Esmeralda finds herself involved with a host of fascinating characters (a dog, a duke, and a family of desperadoes are especially memorable) in a lively, passionate adventure generously peppered with Medeiros's trademark humor and sense of fun. Medeiros (Touch of Enchantment, Bantam, 1997) lives in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
-