Wild Rose Pass Trans-Pecos
Western Romance
The Wild Rose Press, Inc
April 8, 2020
267
Cadence McShane, free-spirited nonconformist, yearns to escape the rigid code, clothes, and sidesaddles of 1880s military society in Fort Davis, Texas. She finds the daring new lieutenant exhilarating, but as the daughter of the commanding officer, she is expected to keep with family tradition and marry West Point graduate James West.
Orphaned, Comanche-raised, and always the outsider looking in, Ben Williams yearns to belong. Cadence embodies everything he craves, but as a battlefield-commissioned officer with the Buffalo Soldiers instead of a West Point graduate, he is neither accepted into military society nor considered marriageable.
Can two people of different worlds, drawn together by conflicting needs, flout society and forge a life together on the frontier?
Reviewed by Linda Tonis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
I don’t remember the last time I read a cowboy and indian book, oh I remember, never. A huge fan of cowboy movies somehow I never really took the time to read a book about the times, won’t happen again.
Fort Davis in Texas is the setting for this story, a time when Apache renegades burned and killed farmers and their families and a time when the army tried to protect people the best they could. The two main characters are Ben Williams and Cadence McShane, from two different worlds brought together by chance.
Ben was kidnapped and raised by the Comanches who burned his home and killed his parents when he was very young. After a while he left the Comanches and was raised by a white family broadening his knowledge of both very different societies. As a second lieutenant he has been transferred to Fort Davis where once again because of his upbringing he is treated like an outsider. He has always wanted nothing more than a family and to belong but being raised by Comanches for most of his life he is considered a savage.
Cadence is what we would refer to as an army brat travelling from place to place with her mother and father. Even living in a fort and surrounded by danger every day there is still a pecking order and she as the captain’s daughter must only hang out with officer’s wives. These wives are married and with children and she has little in common with them. She always feels like she is in a cage and wants freedom but it isn’t possible for her to wander out of the fort alone.
Cadence is being courted by first Lt. James West who expects her to marry him, only since the arrival of Ben she doubts very much that James is the man for her and in short order he proves her right. When a Mexican family comes begging for help after their home was burned to the ground James shows no compassion and wants them gone while Ben insists on finding them a safe place to stay and getting them food and supplies. It was while helping this family with a young child that brought Cadence and Ben together.
I don’t want to give anything away by saying too much but I will say that this book held my interest from the first page till the last. Cadence is not a typical woman of the times since she refuses to follow the norm, instead fighting for what she wants. Ben is a wonderful character who lived through a nightmare and came out an amazing, caring man who just wants to belong.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good love story and especially loves stories involving cowboys and indians.
