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Savage #25
Savage Arrow
When her stagecoach is attacked by outlaws, Jessie Pilson is rescued by Thunder Horse, a Sioux chief who shows her a passion that she has never known, but circumstances beyond their control threaten to tear them apart forever. Original.
326 pages, Paperback
First published January 31, 2006
2 people are currently reading
461 people want to read
About the author
Cassie Edwards
162 books418 followersEdwards began writing romances in 1982 and released her 100th novel, Savage Skies, on August 28, 2007. Although her earlier books were classic historical romances, the vast majority of her novels involve Native American tribes. Edwards's grandmother was a full-blooded Cheyenne. Her first 99 books sold a combined 10 million copies as of August 2007, with her more recent novels averaging sales of 250,000–350,000 copies.
Edwards has won the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award and the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award, as well as being named one of Affaire de Coeur's top ten favorite romance writers. Edwards has a reputation for meticulously researching the proper anthropological backgrounds of each tribe she writes about.
Edwards and her husband Charles, a retired high school biology teacher, have been married for over 50 years. They have two sons, Charles and Brian, and three grandchildren. The family lived in St. Louis, Missouri for over thirty years, but now reside in Mattoon, Illinois.
Edwards has won the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award and the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award, as well as being named one of Affaire de Coeur's top ten favorite romance writers. Edwards has a reputation for meticulously researching the proper anthropological backgrounds of each tribe she writes about.
Edwards and her husband Charles, a retired high school biology teacher, have been married for over 50 years. They have two sons, Charles and Brian, and three grandchildren. The family lived in St. Louis, Missouri for over thirty years, but now reside in Mattoon, Illinois.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 25, 2025
Rating: Hmm.... / 5
So...where to begin with this one, because I do want to justify my low rating in it. Hmm....
Well, I think I'll start off by saying that I was fully prepared to love this, so no preconceived notions led to my...not loving it. The setup's about as perfect as it can get for this type of romance: Jessie, a beautiful young woman, is alone and stranded out in Arizona after outlaws ambushed her stagecoach--although, why they just spooked her horses rather than raping or just outright killing her is never explained. She's rescued by Thunder Horse, the young chief of the Fox band of Sioux, who despite many others living on reservations at the time, still leave free in their own village for as long as Thunder Horse's father is still alive. Jessie and Thunder Horse feel an instant attraction to each other, but neither does anything about it as they don't know each other yet, and then Thunder Horse finds out that Jessie came to live with her cousin, Reginald, who also happens to be Thunder Horse's worst enemy (of course).
So...yeah, the setup's pretty great, but the story goes downhill from there for a number of reasons, all of which had me shrugging my shoulders in indifference:
- this isn't mentioned in the summary at all, which would've been nice, but Jessie herself is actually pregnant in the story. Her previous husband, whom of course she didn't really love (cause...yeah, heroines in these stories are almost never allowed to love their first husbands, which I guess keeps them virgins in one way because all of a sudden with the heroes of the stories they've "never felt like that before", which is total bullshit), was a minister who was murdered, leaving Jessie alone and with no family except for her cousin that she's moving to. Um...yeah, this is glossed over in terms of how Jessie's first marriage went, but since the author is still leaving Jessie with the consequences of that marriage, it would've been better to give the reader a bit more context to that OR just write it out all together and have Jessie be a virginal innocent. Honestly, I'd prefer the first variant, because there is literally ZERO point to having her already having been married before.
- for the first half of the story (literally around 50%, I joke not!), apart from the first chapter, Jessie and Thunder Horse barely interact at all. Like...they think about each other and are apparently special to each other and whatnot, but because they barely interact at all, it just isn't believable and gives me almost nothing to support in terms of the relationship between them!
- also, in terms of Jessie's evil cousin...yeah, Reggie's character made absolutely no sense. On the one hand, he's severely tormented by nightmares because apparently he desecrated a Sioux burial cave to find silver or something and they cursed him and so he hates them; but, on the OTHER hand, he's kind of bipolar in switching between showing off how rich he is and acting all pious, but then under the table operating prostitution places where he forces "many women" against their will to work, including the teenage (or younger?) daughter of his Chinese housekeeper, Jade. Um...not only is that a LOT, but it also makes no sense, for a number of reasons:
1) no way would he be able to pull this off "under the radar". Considering how many men apparently use those prostitution services, they would HAVE to know who's providing it, so no way could it be kept secret.
2) if Reggie really did desecrate a Sioux burial ground, I find it hard to believe that he would've gotten away with it. It's mentioned that Thunder Horse doesn't want to antagonize him because the government would have his back and whatnot, but still!
3) I really didn't get where Jessie fit into things, either. At first, I thought that Reggie was going to go the creepy-incest route--because, from what I'd read of his character, it sounded like the author literally just thought up every evil thing that could apply to a character and said, "yup, let's add that", so why he stopped short of incest, I don't know. Apparently, he just wants to keep Jessie around as a pretty ornament, but then as soon as he finds out she's pregnant, he wants to take her to the town doctor for an abortion and "doesn't care if she's broken by it, cause it's better for him". Again, makes no sense. Heck, even with "showing her off", he's bipolar on that as he buys her pretty things, but then ignores her when it comes to introducing her to the townsfolk. There's like...ZERO consistency in his character, for that the only real impression the reader gets is that "oh, he's evil".
4) What are Chinese people casually doing in Arizona? I mean, not that they hadn't come to America, but I check and in the 1880 census, only 160 people were recorded living in Tucson. Jade says that there's an entire area of the town (not Tucson, by the way) that is known as "Chink Town" and that make up slums, but no way was that a thing. I know the author didn't exactly go for realism here, but just to outright make something up like that is not only inaccurate, but disrespectful. Moreover, I really didn't get what the point of it was.
- AND, of course, there's also the fact that the Sioux people were NOT represented well in terms of their culture. Usually, when reading this genre, learning about Native American cultures is one of my favourite parts, sometimes even topping the romance element. Here though, the culture was described in such a generic way, with Thunder Horse himself already being kind of disconnected from the culture and accepting that his people would end up on reservations once his father died...well, not only was that disheartening, but I just felt disconnected from the story overall as a result. It's like taking away all the sweetness and flavour out of a cake, and then what are you left with? Sure, it'll still look like a cake when it's done, it'll stand up like a cake and even have the texture of a cake; but ultimately, it'll be tasteless or taste bad, and that's the impression I walked away with from this story.
________________
Therefore, take it all in all, while for some reason this has reasonably high ratings on Goodreads, I just don't understand it and didn't care for it at all. To each their own, I guess.
So...where to begin with this one, because I do want to justify my low rating in it. Hmm....
Well, I think I'll start off by saying that I was fully prepared to love this, so no preconceived notions led to my...not loving it. The setup's about as perfect as it can get for this type of romance: Jessie, a beautiful young woman, is alone and stranded out in Arizona after outlaws ambushed her stagecoach--although, why they just spooked her horses rather than raping or just outright killing her is never explained. She's rescued by Thunder Horse, the young chief of the Fox band of Sioux, who despite many others living on reservations at the time, still leave free in their own village for as long as Thunder Horse's father is still alive. Jessie and Thunder Horse feel an instant attraction to each other, but neither does anything about it as they don't know each other yet, and then Thunder Horse finds out that Jessie came to live with her cousin, Reginald, who also happens to be Thunder Horse's worst enemy (of course).
So...yeah, the setup's pretty great, but the story goes downhill from there for a number of reasons, all of which had me shrugging my shoulders in indifference:
- this isn't mentioned in the summary at all, which would've been nice, but Jessie herself is actually pregnant in the story. Her previous husband, whom of course she didn't really love (cause...yeah, heroines in these stories are almost never allowed to love their first husbands, which I guess keeps them virgins in one way because all of a sudden with the heroes of the stories they've "never felt like that before", which is total bullshit), was a minister who was murdered, leaving Jessie alone and with no family except for her cousin that she's moving to. Um...yeah, this is glossed over in terms of how Jessie's first marriage went, but since the author is still leaving Jessie with the consequences of that marriage, it would've been better to give the reader a bit more context to that OR just write it out all together and have Jessie be a virginal innocent. Honestly, I'd prefer the first variant, because there is literally ZERO point to having her already having been married before.
- for the first half of the story (literally around 50%, I joke not!), apart from the first chapter, Jessie and Thunder Horse barely interact at all. Like...they think about each other and are apparently special to each other and whatnot, but because they barely interact at all, it just isn't believable and gives me almost nothing to support in terms of the relationship between them!
- also, in terms of Jessie's evil cousin...yeah, Reggie's character made absolutely no sense. On the one hand, he's severely tormented by nightmares because apparently he desecrated a Sioux burial cave to find silver or something and they cursed him and so he hates them; but, on the OTHER hand, he's kind of bipolar in switching between showing off how rich he is and acting all pious, but then under the table operating prostitution places where he forces "many women" against their will to work, including the teenage (or younger?) daughter of his Chinese housekeeper, Jade. Um...not only is that a LOT, but it also makes no sense, for a number of reasons:
1) no way would he be able to pull this off "under the radar". Considering how many men apparently use those prostitution services, they would HAVE to know who's providing it, so no way could it be kept secret.
2) if Reggie really did desecrate a Sioux burial ground, I find it hard to believe that he would've gotten away with it. It's mentioned that Thunder Horse doesn't want to antagonize him because the government would have his back and whatnot, but still!
3) I really didn't get where Jessie fit into things, either. At first, I thought that Reggie was going to go the creepy-incest route--because, from what I'd read of his character, it sounded like the author literally just thought up every evil thing that could apply to a character and said, "yup, let's add that", so why he stopped short of incest, I don't know. Apparently, he just wants to keep Jessie around as a pretty ornament, but then as soon as he finds out she's pregnant, he wants to take her to the town doctor for an abortion and "doesn't care if she's broken by it, cause it's better for him". Again, makes no sense. Heck, even with "showing her off", he's bipolar on that as he buys her pretty things, but then ignores her when it comes to introducing her to the townsfolk. There's like...ZERO consistency in his character, for that the only real impression the reader gets is that "oh, he's evil".
4) What are Chinese people casually doing in Arizona? I mean, not that they hadn't come to America, but I check and in the 1880 census, only 160 people were recorded living in Tucson. Jade says that there's an entire area of the town (not Tucson, by the way) that is known as "Chink Town" and that make up slums, but no way was that a thing. I know the author didn't exactly go for realism here, but just to outright make something up like that is not only inaccurate, but disrespectful. Moreover, I really didn't get what the point of it was.
- AND, of course, there's also the fact that the Sioux people were NOT represented well in terms of their culture. Usually, when reading this genre, learning about Native American cultures is one of my favourite parts, sometimes even topping the romance element. Here though, the culture was described in such a generic way, with Thunder Horse himself already being kind of disconnected from the culture and accepting that his people would end up on reservations once his father died...well, not only was that disheartening, but I just felt disconnected from the story overall as a result. It's like taking away all the sweetness and flavour out of a cake, and then what are you left with? Sure, it'll still look like a cake when it's done, it'll stand up like a cake and even have the texture of a cake; but ultimately, it'll be tasteless or taste bad, and that's the impression I walked away with from this story.
________________
Therefore, take it all in all, while for some reason this has reasonably high ratings on Goodreads, I just don't understand it and didn't care for it at all. To each their own, I guess.
September 18, 2010
I liked the story in this book and the hero( an Indian chief) and heroine ( a newly pregnant widow). However, the writing left me sort of flat. I can't put my finger on what it was that just kind of laid there. I think the author didn't do a very good job of building up a scene with any kind of tension. This was my first book to read by Cassie Edwards and...I have 1 more book on my tbr mountain by her. I'm hoping that her next book is better written.
January 27, 2023
When her stagecoach is attacked by outlaws, Jessie Pilson is rescued by Thunder Horse, a Sioux chief who shows her a passion that she has never known, but circumstances beyond their control threaten to tear them apart forever.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2008
WOW! is all i can say this book is....wow
May 16, 2010
I really enjoyed this book! Cassie Edwards spins such wonderful stories!
June 10, 2012
Loved this story!! I don't think I will ever get sick of Cassie Edwards stories. Amazing... Keep them coming Cassie.
Read
July 1, 2013Excellent read.I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The nasty,evil man gets his just desserts and the good guy gets the girl.
August 25, 2024
I really enjoyed this story. The writing kept me going along with the plot. My Dad loved to read her books when he was alive and now I understand why. I have a few others that I inherited and look forward to reading them.
August 31, 2021
I had read this book out of curiosity. I liked the story because of the drama and romance plus being set in Arizona. I thought the novel was all right. It was okay but not a favorite.
February 27, 2023
Great read.
January 12, 2016
I really wanted to like this one but the level of cheese was totally unreal. The heroine goes over the TSTL line several times. The hero is kind and protective but the romance went waaaaaay too fast for me to enjoy. The sex scenes were so cheesy i had to skip them. the plot would have been really good but i found it to be poorly executed due to the writing. There were a lot of modern colloquialisms and the exclamation point was ridiculously overused.
Bottom line: i enjoyed the story but the cheese factor ruined the whole thing for me
Bottom line: i enjoyed the story but the cheese factor ruined the whole thing for me
December 24, 2008
I always find stories about Native Americans fascinating, but I'm not a huge fan of her writing style. It's kind of simple and basic compared to what I usually read.
August 7, 2018
Pretty good book.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews