Bound for Sin by Tess LeSue – Review, Guest Post & Giveaway

 

 

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Description:
WANTED: A resourceful frontiersman, for the purpose of matrimony…

When Georgiana Bee Blunt advertises for a husband, she’s not looking for a handsome man, or a smart man, or a charming man. What she wants is a brute. A no-nonsense, capable backwoodsman who won’t trouble her with talk of love; she just wants someone to get her and her fatherless children safely to California. Matt Slater seems to fit the bill perfectly. The man looks like he could wrestle a bear and not even break a sweat. The only problem is he doesn’t want a wife. Well, not the only problem…

Truth be told, Georgiana has more problems than she knows what to do with. Left holding a gold claim by her not-so-dearly departed husband, Georgina finds her eldest son held ransom by the sinister Hec Boehm and his henchmen, and herself facing a journey of more than two thousand miles to rescue him. With four children in tow. And no nanny.

All Matt Slater wants is to be left alone. He’s spent most his life on his lonesome in the wilderness, and he’s comfortable that way. But then a widow with big blue eyes and the tenacity of a buffalo turns his entire life upside down, and before he knows it, he’s playing caretaker to a pack of kids…and trying not to succumb to their mother’s charms.

 

 

Review:

Bound for Sin by Tess LeSue is the 2^nd book in her western historical romance Frontiers of the Heart series.  The story take place during the Gold Rush Days, and LeSue gives us a perfect look at life during those times. 

We meet our heroine Georgina at the start, with her interviewing candidates for a husband.   Georgina needs to find herself a strong man, who can help her go back to California to help find her oldest son, who is being held for ransom (gold land claim).  She has her 4 young children in tow with her, which makes things difficult for her, since the children are a handful.  

Matt Slater, our hero, is the brother of Luke Slater (first book hero), and plans to travel home to Oregon, but on the way will lead a wagon train through rough terrain.  He meets the pretty Georgina, but is determined to stay clear of her trying to find a husband.  He does convince her to join his wagon train, as she will be safe with them. Georgina finds the rugged handsome Matt just what she wants, especially with her also feeling attracted to him.    In a short time, Matt will give in to become her fake fiancée, to help her get around the men following her to make sure she goes to California. 

Once they all leave for the rough trek, Matt will slowly find himself enamored by Georgina, and she even more so, as she watches how he manages to control her children, and they all care for him.  Can Georgina win Matt over?

I loved the way Matt was so great with the kids; perfect father material.  It did not take long for him to give into his feelings for Georgina, as their chemistry was scorching. Together they make plans to go to California to get her son. 

I do not want to tell too much more, as the last ¼ of the book had some twists and turns, which changes things drastically.  What follows is a sweet adventure with some danger, excitement and the humorous banter between Matt and Georgina.   I really liked them together, but there were so many issues that kept them apart; even to the point that I was beginning to lose hope.  Especially as we got closer to the end, things were happily looking up, and a surprise twist blows it all away.  Will Matt ever find happiness with Georgina?  You will have to read the book to find out. 

It was a very intense but satisfying finish.  Bound for Sin was a sweet fun historical western that was exciting, romantic  and humorous, with a great couple.  I suggest you read Bound for Sin, which was very well written by Tess LeSue.    I look forward to the next book by Tess LeSue.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher

 

by Tess LeSue

When I was a kid I was mad for the Anne of Green Gables TV mini-series. I’d read the books but the mini-series was something else again. It was an idyllic, pretty world, complete with a bittersweet soundtrack that was so romantic it made my heart ache. I used to watch my video tapes of it at least once a week, without fail. Both the original series and the sequel, when Anne broke my heart by turning down Gilbert Blythe, and then mended it again by realizing she’d loved him all along.  Who can forget their first kiss, on a twilit autumn bridge over a shining pond? I loved the nostalgia of both series, the sense of time passing, and moments being lost, of the present becoming the past. I loved the sheer beauty of it: the blossoms and wind-swept beaches, the snow-covered fields and the thick woods. I loved Gilbert Blythe; he was the perfect romantic hero. He was tall, dark, handsome, smart – and he knew he loved Anne from the moment he saw her. He didn’t waver. He knew he she was, warts and all, and he loved everything about her. Oh, the look in his eyes when she rejected him. That breathless pain. I also loved Matthew and Marilla and the way they stumbled into parenting, startled by their own joy. I loved the sprawling cast of secondary characters: kindred spirits and inspiring teachers; gossipy neighbours and kind storekeepers; postmistresses and pastors; entire interlocked communities of people, living simple but rich lives, in a time before globalism or modernity. Most of all I loved Anne, who is a heroine for the ages. Whip-smart and independent-minded, she always got back on her feet after a setback and forged ahead no matter the obstacles; she was passionate and impulsive; she was kind. She loved books. She wasn’t afraid to compete with the boys.

When I was a kid watching Anne of Green Gables I never thought of it as a Western, but in many ways it is. A mannered Canadian Western. It’s about a small farming community at the turn of the century, and a girl who arrives, wide-eyed with wonder at the beauty and opportunity she finds. There are dirt roads, horses and carriages, and a simple country life: picking apples, baking, milking cows, going to school in a simple one-room school house. There are hay rides and cotillions, scandals and enduring friendships. While it differs from the American Western in many ways, it has many intersections, not least of which is the intrinsic melancholy for a time and a place that has passed. I kept thinking of Anne of Green Gables as I wrote Bound for Sin (I even re-watched the series, the TV in on the background as I wrote) because for me the thrill and comfort of Anne is also the thrill and comfort I look for in a romance set in the west.

My work is nothing like Anne of Green Gables, and yet the echoes are there. The sprawling casts of characters: quirky and funny and interlocked, their lives woven together so tightly that they can never extricate themselves from one another. Westerns are about people and the ways they forge new communities in wild places. The beauty of both the natural world and the simple life are central to Anne of Green Gables, and are also the focus of the entire ‘Frontiers of the Heart’ series. In Bound for Sin my characters cover almost two thousand miles of some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world: we see the breathtaking beauty of the Cascades, the bleached power of deserts, the majesty of the grasslands in a storm. And, just like Anne, my heroine Georgiana wants nothing more than a place to call home.

In a western home is a modest concept (although not so modest it doesn’t come with comforts). Home is a patch of land and a house, the bounty of nature at your doorstep, family around you, food in the larder, and the chance to live free. Desires common to most humans. When I think of Georgiana’s end point, it’s not unlike Green Gables: a whitewashed house under spreading shade trees, rockers on a wraparound porch, fields and forests for the children to roam, and a kitchen that always has coffee on the stove and a pie on the table. Only Georgiana also has a husband beside her, making short work of both the coffee and the pie, and keeping her well accompanied through the long winter nights.

In this age we live in – of technological saturation, information overload, and 24/7 busyness – the fantasy of old-fashioned country life is a comfort. When you pick up a western, you can leave all the 21^st century problems behind and strike out for a new place, a place that isn’t citified, a place where you can enjoy the simple pleasures, and put love in the centre of the story.

 

 

Tess’s publisher is offering a paper copy of BOUND FOR SIN to ONE (1) lucky commenter at The Reading Cafe.

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