A REASON TO SIN

Author: Maureen McKade ISBN: 9780425220597 3/2008 HISTORICAL Publisher: BERKLEY SENSATION
Time Period: 1868 Victorian

How do you let yourself love without revealing your deepest secrets? Once upon a time, Rebecca Colfax was a well-to-do young woman with a bright future in St. Louis. Then her husband gambled all her money away and disappeared into the night. Alone, homeless, and desperate, she was forced to take her son to an orphanage, but now she's determined to get him back. Little did she know that during her search she'd encounter a man destined to change the course of her life... Rebecca Colfax was out of options. Which is how she wound up working at the Scarlet Garter in Oaktree, Kansas, as a singer and hurdy-gurdy girl, trying to scrape together enough money to get her son back. At the saloon, she reveals nothing of herself, not even her real name. She doesn't want anyone to know her secrets—especially not sexy Slater Forrester, a faro dealer and ex-spy who's clearly haunted by something in his past. But when violence bursts through the saloon's doors, she discovers a dangerously appealing side to Slater, a side she finds hard to resist. But how will the man she's falling for react when he uncovers the secrets she's keeping?

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Maureen McKade writes an emotionally charged story of two strong, leading characters set into a realistically written backdrop of the Old West in her latest release, A REASON TO SIN. This is the final book in the Forrester series, A REASON TO LIVE and A REASON TO BELIEVE, but not having read those two previous titles I can say that this book stands well on its own.

The time is not long after the Civil War, and both Rebecca and Slater seem to have gotten the short end of the stick in life. Slater suffers the aftereffects of being a prisoner of war during his service in the Civil War. It haunts his nights, while the events he experienced during his captivity in one of its most notorious prison camps makes him feel unworthy of Rebecca's attention and love.

At the same time, Rebecca has temporarily given up that which is most precious to her, her newborn son, but vows to catch the husband who deserted her and squandered away her inheritance. Determined to earn enough money to locate and confront the scoundrel, she and Slater become unwitting allies as both are drawn to one another and passion ignites between them. (Her character and those of the saloon girls, I must admit, is the most compelling part of this story, perfect examples of the lack of standing women had during this period as well as the few remedies offered to them in order to alleviate a bad situation.)

When I say that passion ignites, I mean, it blazes. The sexual friction between these two is like a lit fuse to dynamite. And of course, with Rebecca being married, they both know to act upon their passion could have some devastating effects and an everlasting impact on both of their lives. However, McKade works that out quite nicely in the end.

Realistic in its depiction of place and characters, and with an added secondary storyline involving extortion and the violence that it incurs, A REASON TO SIN is one Western romance you won't want to miss.

Nancy Davis