TW: attempted rape, domestic violence, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical violence, murder, animal death, childbirth, child death, death, grief
👎 ❌ I would rather have read about the tumbleweed that blew through this mess.
Wayward Wind by Dorothy Garlock © 1986. Cover artist Sharon Spiak. This is a 6th ed. mass market found in a second hand bookstore for $2.25. Which was $2 more than it was worth.
I'm giving 25 cents for the cover, which was by far the best thing about this one. This guy is 🔥🔥🔥 yessiree!
You know it's bad when you realize 1/4 of the way in that the two characters that are the most uninteresting and undeveloped are the MCs: rough and ready blue-eyed rancher Cooper Parnell (26), and rough and ready violet-blue-eyed Lorna Douglas (19).
After wading through 350 pages of historical Western dialogue, we're left with a hodge-podge of unconnected and completely boring storylines, a lot of references to tobacco, people who never utter a word that isn't yelled or roared, endless bouts of crying, and death. The heroine would also spontaneously burst into song at random moments because her voice was sweeter than angels flying through the mountains. Or something.
There was so much violence toward women and animals that wild horses couldn't make me recommend anyone read it.
All the nominations for the Cringe Award went to Ch 11 and the only sex scene in the novel, which was very, very bad. At one point she "began to move on the spear that pierced her." No! Just no!
And he "emptied himself in her not once -- but twice" within FIVE MINUTES. I call horse manure.