B. M. Bower (1871–1940)

I was shocked by how good this was. A woman writer in 1906 putting together a very compelling western with fully formed main characters, great atmosphere, humor and a little romance on the side was not what I expected. Add to that the fact that the author used the proceeds from this book to leave her abusive first husband and I love it even more!

A slightly sappy, but sweet western romance revolving around the antics of a group of cowboys after the boss's niece, the "Little Doctor" comes to stay at the Flying U ranch. Homey and humorous episodes involve a variously, a coyote and some luggage, an accidental pill overdose at a party which necessitates several stomach pumping, a cactus patch, a runaway horse, and an injured cowboy culminate in a happy ending for most all concerned.

It's a cozy read for a winter afternoon when the wind is show more whistling round the windows, and the snow is flying past them. show less

I'm not sure I'll be able to finish this. I've read four B. M. Bower books previously, and liked it all. Not this one. It's silly and tedious as all hell.

So, we have Johnny Jewell, an aspiring flyer in the early days of air travel (1919). He's engaged to Mary V. Selmer, who is the spoiled daughter of a rich rancher, Sudden Selmer. Johnny owes Sudden a bunch of money because he let a herd of horses get stolen while he was playing with his airplane. He's determined to pay back his debt before show more marrying Mary V. An old crony from the first book in this series (I didn't know there was a series), Bland Halliday, shows up, looking for a hand out. He is supremely sketchy, but apparently knows something about airplanes and will "help" Johnny learn to profit from his owning a plane.

Well, that all sounds like an interesting beginning. But, what we have, in the first third of the book at least, are endless pages of adolescent squabbling between Johnny and Mary V. There's not a lot of other things going on except for their adolescent squabbling. Yeech!

Probably deserves 1½*. Can't get 2 because I couldn't finish it. show less

Yet another second-rate contemporary book drove me back to cowboy books from a century ago. What's going on with modern writers (besides the fact that proper grammar, as it was taught up into the 1960s, if not beyond, seems no longer to matter to writers, who were at one time, presumably, English majors)?

This was fun, albeit a bit different. A young woman, Valaria Peyson, known as Val, comes out to Hope, Montana to marry her sweetheart of three years, Manley Fleetwood (Man). He's changed, show more although she wouldn't have know it from his letters. It turns out he's become a drunk and doesn't work all that hard on his ranch. When Val arrives at the train station, he's not around. She is met by a somewhat diffident "cowboy", Kent Burnett, who takes her to the local hotel and drops her immediately. Burnett then heads to the local saloon. She thinks he's gone off drinking, but in reality, he's gone to sober up the prospective husband.

Well, things go on. Eventually, Man gets his comeuppance and Burnett is revealed to be a good person and worthy of someone of the likes of Val. Something like that. show less