Rainbow Reviews

BOOK BLURB:
Rancher Paxton Terhune has lived a cold, lonely life for three hard years. A lynch mob took his lover, hanging him in front of Pax. A corrupt mine owner put a price on his head, chasing Pax from his own lands and into the high country. But Zane Steadman, a bounty hunter sent to bring Pax in, sees more than the outlaw’s tarnished reputation.

Trapped by an early blizzard, Zane thaws the winter gripping Pax’s heart. But now the mine owner wants to take away the new love Pax has found, robbing him of Zane’s warmth and hanging the bounty hunter just for siding with him.

Pax won’t allow that to happen again. There comes a time when a man has to make a stand and declare “enough’s enough” ... even if it means a gun fight to the death.

BOOK REVIEW:
Rancher Paxton Terhune had carved out a contented life in the high Rocky Mountains, living happily with his life partner Maddox, a free African-American whose family had worked for Paxton's grandfather. Life is rough but productive, until Maddox ~ a logical choice because of his ethnicity ~ is framed for the murder of a saloon girl. Before Paxton can bail him out safely, a lynch mob stirred into action by the real killer breaks Maddox out of the jail and hangs him before Paxton's anguished gaze.

Next Paxton is targeted for a murder of which he's innocent, and flees to the mountains where bounty hunter Zane Steadman finally locates him. Unusually, both Paxton and Zane are gay and heart-hungry as well as physically lonely. Trapped in a sudden early snowstorm in the mountains as Paxton predicts, the two find common ground, first in lust and then in a developing love which changes Zane's entire approach to turning Paxton in for bounty.

Author T.D. McKinney, who has penned several exciting gay-themed novels, has a deft touch with delineating a well-researched historical period, turned to a new perspective that has not traditionally been explored: that of the gay experience, and of multiracial love, in the American Old West. I really enjoyed this novel, both for the new historical view, and also for the interwoven lives of the protagonists, Paxton, Zane, and the absent deceased Maddox, who is also a major part of the novel. The m/m sex is steamy and is thoroughly grounded in heartfelt emotion which grows realistically as Zane and Paxton spend time together, first involuntarily while snowbound, later by choice. I highly recommend this fine novel and author T. D. McKinney.

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