BOOK BLURB: Life in a small New England village is too quiet, too ordinary for a free spirit like Lucy Forbes. When her father lands a job out West, she packs her books and her dreams and eagerly sets off to pursue the kind of grand adventures she longs to experience and write about. Yet the moment she steps off a train in Kansas, she's thrust into the gritty reality of an untamed frontier—and into the arms of a scoundrel.Henry Stevens, the ruthless railroad executive her father has been sent to investigate, is as passionate as he is ambitious. Brave and charming, as well as clever, and possessed of a sharp wit. He is, in fact, the most fascinating man Lucy has ever met. However, his opponents are vanishing and strangers are shooting at him. Fearing for her father's life, Lucy resolves to unmask the secretive Mr. Stevens and expose a villain. What she doesn’t expect to find is a hero.
MY REVIEW:
A Dangerous Passion by E.E. BurkeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A Dangerous Passion by E. E. Burke is a 2014 publication. I was provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is an outstanding western historical romance with well drawn characters, intrigue, and mystery.
Lucy and her father arrives in the old west, far from the dull New England town they haled from, Lucy finds the sense of adventure appealing to her independent and free spirited nature. However, Kansas is a rough untamed land and Lucy's father is not here for fun and games. He has been sent to investigate a railroad executive, Henry Stevens.
Henry's entire life is dedicated to the railroad. He is ambitious to a fault and in order to achieve his goals he has no qualms about being ruthless. He is disheartened though to learn his supervisors intend to replace him. Not only that, he appears to be a murder target and he is suspected of all manner of evil deeds. This bothers Lucy greatly as the investigation could place her father in grave danger. So, despite her attraction to the charismatic Henry, she is determined to find out what he is up to.
I loved all the characters in the story. Lucy is a spirited girl and breath of fresh air as she often speaks her mind and has a protective streak toward her father, who is her hero.
I loved Henry's human frailties, a man who has a huge burden dumped on him as a boy and who is always trying to do the honorable and right thing, but whose methods are often found lacking.
The building of the railroads in this period of history is endlessly fascinating since it involves so many differing opinions, politics, backstabbing, crime, and the beginnings of a new frontier and way of life for so many.
It's rare for a novel to pull off a mixture of humor, sharp dialogue, romance and adventure with the right balance and pacing. But, this book does just that. I love western historical romances and to me there simply are not enough of them being written these days. If we get more of them written with this level of quality, I can see the genre making a big comeback into the hearts of romance lovers. 5 stars!
E.E. Burke writes romance from the heart, woven with history the way in really happened in the wild American West. Her writing has earned accolades in regional and national contests, including the RWA's prestigious Golden Heart®.She combines her passion for history and love of romance in stories that are as deeply rooted in American soil as her family, which she can trace back to the earliest colonists and through both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.
"My earliest memories of books were the nursery rhyme volumes I took to bed with me when I was three. From that point on, I was hooked. Some people hugged their bears. I hugged my books."
Over the years, she’s been a disc jockey, a journalist and an advertising executive, before finally getting around to pursuing her dream of writing novels. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and three daughters, the greatest inspiration of all
