New Review: Nora Roberts’ LAWLESS – Superb suspenseful storytelling from the Old West!

This was my first historical romance by Nora Roberts and I loved it. Set in 1875 in Arizona Territory, it tells of Sarah Conway, who was raised in a convent school in Philadelphia where her father left her when he went west to discover gold. He loved his daughter and saw Sarah had everything but the one thing she really wanted—her father. So, when she was nearly 18, she traveled west to Lone Bluff where her father had settled and built them a fine home. She is shocked to see how stark the land was and to discover her father has been killed in an accident in his mine and there was no fine home. Instead, she finds a one-room shack with a dirt floor.

Jake Redman is half Apache and all gunslinger, a hardened man but with a kind, noble heart. Jake thinks the girl he calls Duchess won’t last a day in Lone Bluff. But he was wrong. And for some reason, he wants to protect her.

Sarah is a stubborn, determined woman with little respect for the prejudice of others. She falls hard for Jake and befriends a young prostitute—all the while she is making a home of the cabin her father left her and building a seamstress business. Jake is the perfect hero, steel and ice outside and fire inside. Sarah has a steel backbone but is all lady inside.

Roberts brings the Old West to life creating vivid images of the rough life on the frontier with lots of action to keep you biting your nails. There are wonderful secondary characters, too, including Lucius, the kind old soldier who Sarah hires to look after her place; Alice, the young prostitute who thought the sun rose with Sarah; Sam Carlson, the smooth rancher who was more snake than gentleman; and Carlotta, the madam of the local whorehouse who wants gold and Jake and doesn’t take kindly to the proper young lady from Philadelphia who has captured Jake’s attention. Great storytelling!

I recommend this one!