This review is of “Embrace the Wild Land”, book #4 in the “Savage Destiny” series by Rosanne Bittner.
The Story: It is now 1861, and Abigail Trent Monroe and her husband, “Cheyenne” Zeke Monroe and their seven children are living happily in what is now present-day Colorado. Which means something bad is going to happen. It does when the Monroes travel to an Army fort. A soldier tries to rape Abbie, and Zeke later kills him. Meanwhile, Zeke’s white half-brother, Danny, leaves the West to go back east to join the Confederacy in the Civil War. In another development, Winston Garvey, ex-U.S. Senator and Evil White Man, is trying to find out the name and whereabouts of his half-Indian son.
As troubles mount for Zeke, Abbie, the Cheyenne and all Indian tribes, Danny is severely wounded during the Civil War, and Garvey’s son, Charles, and some of Garvey’s men have a confrontation with Zeke, Abbie and their family. The Monroes win the confrontation, but the elder Garvey puts the information together and realizes that the Monroes know about his other son. This leads to Garvey sending men to kidnap Abbie, who is later emotionally, mentally, physically and sexually abused by Garvey and his henchmen.
As the book progresses, Zeke finds Danny, and one of his other half-brothers, Lance. (A third half-brother, Lenny, was killed in the Civil War.) Zeke also makes some peace with his biological father. Zeke and his eldest son, Wolf’s Blood, deal out justice to Garvey and his men, and Zeke and Abbie re-find each other and, for a little while, are happy again.
Upside: As always, Ms. Bittner draws tremendous pictures with her words. She brings me, as a reader, into the lives of the Monroe family and makes me see not words on a page, but real people, with real emotions.
Downside: At times, Ms. Bittner’s writing is formulaic; I’ve already described this in earlier reviews.
Sex: The weakest part of Ms. Bittner’s writing is her love scenes, which are not particularly sexy nor imaginative to me.
Violence: Ms. Bittner, however, has a great imagination for violence, and it definitely shows up in “Embrace the Wild Land.” As usual, there are multiple scenes of shooting, assault, sexual assault and killing, and, toward the end of the book, it’s especially graphic. In Ms. Bittner’s world, the bad people always get their comeuppance; unfortunately , not before seriously hurting the good people.
Bottom Line: “Embrace the Wild Land” isn’t my favorite book by Ms. Bittner, but it’s still darn good.