Genre: Western/Romance/Historical/Short
Story
Description:
“His partner’s grisly death destroyed Texas
Ranger Quinn Barclay. Cashiered for drunkenness and refusal to follow orders,
he sets out to fulfill his partner’s dying request, armed only with a saloon
girl’s name.
Sister María Tomás thought she wanted to
become a nun, but five years as a postulant have convinced her childhood dreams
aren’t always meant to be. At last ready to relinquish the temporary vows she
never should have made, she begs the only man she trusts to collect her from a
mission in the middle of nowhere.
When the ex-Ranger’s quest collides with the
ex-nun’s plea in a burned-out border town, unexpected love blooms among shared
memories of the dead man who was a brother to them both.
Too bad he was also the only man who could
have warned them about the carnage to come.”
Author:
Kathleen Rice Adams: “Descended from a long line of Texas ranchers,
preachers, and teachers on one side and Kentucky horse thieves and moonshiners
on the other, award-winning author Kathleen Rice Adams had no choice but to
become an outlaw. Maybe that's why in her stories, even the good guys wear
black hats.
For the past thirty years, she's stayed two steps ahead of a lynch mob
as an award-winning journalist. She also has ghost-written or edited several
nonfiction books.
A Texan to the bone, when Kathleen's not being a nuisance she bows to
the whims of the Hole in the Web Gang -- a herd of tiny but enthusiastic
outlaws with four legs.”
For more please visit Ms. Adams’ website.
Appraisal:
I enjoy a little cowboy action occasionally. The Second-Best Ranger in
Texas filled the bill nicely. The characters are well developed and realistic.
Quinn is trying to deal with his best friend’s death through whisky. After
losing his position as a Texas Ranger, Quinn is now on a mission to carry out
the promise to his dying friend. The message is cryptic; all he has is the
first name of a woman and the name of the town to find her.
Upon arriving in San Miguel all Quinn finds is a burned up town with
only two buildings remaining: the saloon, thank God, and a mission at the edge
of town. The mission houses a few nuns, orphans, and injured survivors. Quinn
figures if Dulce had ever been in San Miguel it is likely she disappeared with
everyone else when the town burned to the ground.
The story unfolds at a nice pace as Quinn does all he can to assist
the nuns by burying their dead and helping them relocate to another mission.
Ms. Adams does an excellent job capturing the flavor of the town and the
essence of her characters with her excellent prose. The characters practically
walk off the page and into your heart. This includes Quinn’s horse, Bulls-eye.
I can highly recommend this novelette for a quick pick-me-up read.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
The Second-Best Ranger in Texas was the winner of the 2015
Western Fictioneers Peacemaker best short fiction award.
Original review posted August 31, 2016.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: *****
Five Stars
Reviewed
by: ?wazithinkin
Approximate word count: 9-10,000 words
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