Sunday, January 2, 2011

Caine's Reckoning: Oh So Rugged

I do a lot of my "reading" with audiobooks.  Usually I will spend months debating the merits of a particular book, reading reviews, listening to sample chapters, then buy something completely different on the spur of the moment.  This is how I came to download Caine's Reckoning by Sarah McCarty from Audible. 

Caine's Reckoning is the first of the Hell's Eight books, an ongoing romance series about tough cowboys and gunslingers with manly hands and sensitive hearts in a part of Texas called Hell's Eight.  At least I think that is what the series is about.  Mostly I just keep coming across descriptions of cowboys with tough manly hands which stray over the supple skin of emotionally wounded women who are not at all whores despite their past professions as prostitutes.

Perhaps this is what I should have expected going into this book.  In my opinion a good western should contain at least a few scenes appropriate for "adult westerns" between shootouts and high adventure, so a book specifically called an "erotic adventure" with a pistol packing cowboy on the cover seemed like a good idea.  The novel did open in a ruggedly adventurous way, but moved quickly into long detailed descriptions of how dangerous, honorable, and rugged the main characters and his compañeros are.  I listened to the big seduction scene while on a long run, and by mile six of the run the hero was just getting around to rubbing his manly and rugged thumb over the heroine's sensitive feminine core- what the heck, McCarty comes right out and calls it her pussy, so I guess I can say that, too.  That is a lot of slow buildup for my tender sensitivities on a run.  Did I mention how rugged they all are?


While Caine's Reckoning isn't going to be my perfect western, I can see where this series would be popular.  McCarty certainly can write, giving her characters and setting life.  It may not be overly original, but folks who like their cowboys running rough yet tender hands over their heroines will probably enjoy this book.


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