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!

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

This is pretty silly. Clearly not one of Bower's best. Jack Corey, a spoiled rich boy is out with friends, drinking and partying. On the way home, they decide to goof around a bit and "hold up" some cars on the road. One such hold up involves getting a young man shot. Jack and his friends flee. When Jack gets home, he realizes he might be in deep doo doo, so he decides to "disappear".

He disappears to northern California and ends up manning a fire tower in the forest. Essentially, he finds show more himself living in a glass booth on the top of a mountain, overlooking miles of forest. His job is to watch for forest fires and call in their location when he sees one. It's a lonely job, but at least he's safe from prying eyes. Hardly anyone goes near his location except for an occasional hiker. He changes his name slightly, and his hair style so he can pretend he can't be found.

But, just down the mountain, a party of four people show up. Allegedly, they're prospecting. They have to dig and pretend to prospect for a couple of years. Then, they gain claim to the land, at which point they can cut down the timber and actually make some money. One of the crew is the delectable Marion Rose.

Naturally, Jack eventually becomes enamored with Marion Rose, and when he's not paying attention, he runs his fingers through his hair so that he again looks like Jack Corey, the wanted man, not John Carew, the lookout man. Marion doesn't seem to mind all that much, especially after Jack explains the circumstances.

When, lots of excitement ensues, including a whopper of a wild fire that threatens Marion Rose. The ending isn't so great. It's like Ms. Bower got bored and just tied things up in a few pages. So, most of the book was ok and engaging, but the end didn't work well. I've read a number of Bower books now, and liked them all. This one was ok, but not up to all the other Bower books I've read. 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