Lawless

This was my first time with Nora Roberts, so I may be sentimental in this review. I really enjoyed this book. Sarah, the heroine, had just the right mix of femininity and spunk. I enjoyed Sarah's back-story, her trials and how she overcame them. This is a great old-fashioned romance novel.

While I was surprised that Ms. Roberts wrote a Western historical, I was happy to find it has all her trademark romance and suspense. Sarah Conway has been educated back East but comes to Arizona to find her father. She's a lady by any definition of the word, yet she's determined to follow her father's dream. Jake Redman is part Apache. He's sure Sarah won't stick it out with the dirt and hard work in the small claim her father owned. Despite himself, he ends up helping the spunky woman, but there is more to why Sarah's father died.

A gently bred lady from Philadelphia comes out west looking for her father, only to find that he died right before her arrival and that the fine house he had described in his letters was no more than a fantasy. But a suspicious fire soon suggests that his mine might not have been quite as worthless as people thought. Meanwhile, part-Apache gunslinger Jake Redman finds himself drawn into protecting her, and naturally, sparks fly. This is a fun read, complete with a pot-bellied sheriff, shooting lessons for the lady, a badly behaved puppy, and hookers with hearts of gold (and an evil madam).

Arizona Territory is wild, rugged and beautiful. It's Jake Redman's country. But when he encounters Eastern lady Sarah Conway, come west to live with her father, Jake is struck by a desire for something more.

Sarah, on the other hand, is stunned to find her father dead in a mine collapse, and the letters he wrote her of his success little more than a pipe dream. Now, left with only a one-room cabin and a mine she has no interest in working, Sarah must decide if she is up to the challenge.

Toss in a plotting rancher, a scheming madame, and of course, an abduction by Indians, and there's plenty of excitement here. Perhaps not Roberts best, but not a bad book for all that.

Good not great. Fairly typical contemporary romance.

Lawless, Jack Series #3 by Nora Roberts
Sarah Conway travels from the east to the west to reunite with her father after 12 years.
Jake Redman, Indian Apache likes taking care of the new pioneer woman. She's come west after being in a convent most of her life. She wanted to surprise her father who owns a mine.
Problem is he died a few days earlier. He's agreed for money to take her to her father's house. It's very far out in the desert. She loves the views: desert, rocks and sky.
Her father had described a huge mansion and that is not what he drove her to, at all.
The mine had caved in and she saw the sign 'sarah's pride' She saw his grave and knew he had lied about everything. He had no money for clothes and fancy things.
She finds his money show more from under the rock, the deed to the mine and a few hundred dollars. She's eating out of cans, cold beans and has had to walk 1/2 mile for water.
Jake is still watching her from a distance because he doesn't trust others out in the wild.
She has every intention in staying at her father's and making a go of things. He's showed and told her that only rattlers and coyotes are out there.
He rode out of town after refusing a lady of the evening to go check on Sarah. Luckily he did as her shed was on fire. He finds her safe but there's blood.
Lizza is her friend from the general store in town and she provides her with sewing and just being someone she can talk to. Others in town might want her dresses, Lizza will help her with the contacts.
She is introduced to the wilds of the west when she becomes kidnapped and Jake again has to come to her rescue. She is wondering if she will just return to the east and be done with all this... show less