Winter Fire

Avon

Winter Fire
Elizabeth Lowell
1996

The Summary
"Orphaned at thirteen, a mail-order bride at fourteen, widowed at sixteen, Sarah Kennedy has learned to depend upon no one but herself--reserving all her love for her younger brother Connor, and for the wounded hawks she heals and returns to the air.

"Personal tragedy has taught Case Maxwell to love nothing that can die, and that justice is blind.  But when a confrontation with his sworn enemies, the Culpepper clan, leaves the hardened Civil War veteran near death, Case finds himself under the tender, unwanted care of Sarah Kennedy.

"Destiny has brought the healer and the warrior together--two souls haunted by the bitter ghosts of the past--to brave chilling risks and dangerous truths...as they seek the courage to face the greatest risk of all:  love."

The Good
I mostly enjoyed Winter Fire.  It's a quick, little romance, which quickly endeared itself to me with its quintessential Western qualities:  gun fights, bandits, Spanish gold, stoic heroes, sassy heroines, wild Mustangs, panoramic views of untouched canyons--and that's just the first chapter.  I mean, I found it to be just plain fun (when I wasn't lambasting the main characters for being foolish and/or stupid).

The Bad
Although I enjoyed Winter Fire overall, I found that the story had rather poor character development, unrealistic romantic entanglements, and a not-completely-satisfying conclusion.  I say poor character development, because it seemed like Case and Sarah don't change, not really.  Sarah more so than Case, but even that seems negligible, unless the author purposefully points out that, oh, yes, Sarah actually has been impacted by Case's appearance on her ranch.

Likewise, I wasn't a fan of their evolving relationship.  I mean, I understand that they share an unexpected attraction, but I can't help feeling that it's silly the sudden lack of control they have, especially when Sarah still flinches when a man touches her--remember, she was married to an abusive drunk--and Case is hunting down a band of notorious marauders.  The Culpepper gang is literally next door to Sarah's ranch....and yet you're having sex out in the desert?  Really?

I think there are more important things, like, I don't know, keeping yourself alive.

Moreover, I wasn't a fan of the ending.  It just kind of happened all at once or, maybe, I just didn't see the subtle signs, until the author whacked me over the head with them.  Either way, I wasn't a fan of the ending.  It all just seemed to happen at once and, personally, I found it odd that the heroine was such a deep sleeper.  If I was living out in the desert alone, after spending years under the thumb of an abusive drunk/husband, I would probably be a much lighter sleeper.

Last, I want to point out something that annoyed me throughout the entire novel:  character thoughts.  Normally, I don't mind peeping into a particular character's thoughts to get a more intimate view of what they think, what they feel, what they have experienced; however, I think Winter Fire overused these "thought bubbles."  I dreaded seeing italicized text, because I knew that I was about to get another intimate glance at either Sarah's or Case's most intimate thoughts.

And, as they were basically the same thoughts over and over with different wording, I was sick and tired of reading about them.  I didn't need to hear Case recite 44 different times how wrong it was for him to be attracted to Sarah, how he didn't want to care about her, how all the love had been burned out of him long ago.  It just became repetitive and annoying--and so I just started skipping italicized sections altogether.

The Ugly
Sarah and Case both have, shall we say, rough history.

Sarah was a mail-order bride at fourteen-years-old after her whole family was killed by a hurricane; she married a man who regularly assaulted her and abused her brother; then, when she was widowed, she was forced to care for her twelve-year-old brother, out in the desert, all on her own.  I couldn't have done it.

And Case spent a number of years fighting in the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, only to return home and find his home and his brother's family--his beloved niece and nephew--butchered by the Culpepper Gang.  He subsequently spends the next several years hunting down the Culpeppers, enduring more tragedy and more agony than most men can bare.