Goldtown: A Novel of the American West - Hardcover

Cleary, Rita

9780865342415: Goldtown: A Novel of the American West

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865342415 ISBN 13: 9780865342415

Publisher: Sunstone Pr, 1996

The Civil War has ended in defeat for Captain Lee Cameron and Emma Dubois, but its impact lives on. The two struggle to establish honor, family and a new beginning in this tale of love, jealousy and obsession in the explosive boomtown of Varina, Montana, 1867.

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About the Author:

Rita Cleary's first novel, SORREL, was finalist Best First Novel, Spur Awards, Western Writers of America. She has loved the outdoors, history, the American West and horses from childhood. She is a member of the Author's Guild, Western Writers of America and a founding member of Women Writing the West.

From Publishers Weekly:

Gritty and fast-paced, this western romance is comfortingly predictable in detail, down to the sharp-as-a-whip, lice-infested hired gunman who makes it gallop. Former Confederate cavalry captain Lee Cameron, now a gambler, heads to the gold rush town of Varina, Mont., in 1867. He is looking for his pre-Civil War sweetheart, Emma Dubois, who has moved west and now runs a dancehall. Their first encounter in Varina is awkward, especially when Lee learns that Emma is a widow and that he is the father of her child. The star-crossed lovers' reunion is further darkened by the post-war Reb and Yank antagonism, threats of claim-jumping and the quick violence of gold fever, as well as their own feelings of uncertainty. It doesn't help when Lee is forced to shoot off the right arm of mean, hot-tempered Spud Ervin in the aftermath of a poker game. Crazed with desire for revenge and maddened with lust for Emma, Spud manages to menace everyone in town. Repulsive Spud is the novel's most realistic character. Emma is a standard western heroine, hardboiled and independent, while Lee is a Fabio in buckskins (Lee to Emma: "'Dammit, woman, you do know how to rile a man!' Abruptly, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her"). Even the vigilantes with their convenient knot-tying can't tie up all the wild emotions and loose ends in this conventional, if spirited, melodrama.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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