Sarah Mac’s Reviews > Marilee > Status Update

Out of all the Californio autocrats in all the gin joints in all the world (or at least in New Mexico territory), Marilee stumbles on THIS delulu whackadoo. Poor girl just can’t catch a break. 😂

Supposedly we’re having a rain/ice mix all night tonight…which makes a lovely cuddly hot-tea-and-book atmosphere for trying to finish this. 😬 I love reading in bad weather. Well, I love reading anytime…but bad weather makes it even better.

‘She turned on him violently, fighting him & herself. He didn’t let her go, & her struggles changed to a frenzied attack, for she would not remain passive & simply allow him to use her body. Hard & furious, their coupling was done with in minutes, w/o tenderness or kisses, & she despised him for feeling so proud of himself. As he climbed back to his feet, she cut at him, “Comanches do it better.” …Lol. 🤭

‘Damn them! Making her out a whore, but absolving Elizabeth of any blame, any sin that couldn’t be righted when Joe married her. So smug & righteous, certain of their purity, every tight-faced woman among them positive she would protect her white Christian honor by suicide before allowing any savage to touch her. As if they would; as if they could before lusting braves spread them for ravishing. Liars, liars!’

‘Mules & horses & people, voices calling, a dog barking; Marilee felt her skin tighten. It was so familiar, yet somehow strange; she had once been part of a wagon train like this, among these people whose skin matched hers, who talked of homes that had been & a life that would be. Now it all seemed busy & alien, & she felt a little knot of something close to fear; she knew herself to be a stranger.’

‘Her body would not obey, refused to stop its reaching, its lascivious grindings, & so she would not hate herself so much, she turned it upon this savage instead, raking that broad, hard back w/ her fingers & taking the flesh of his shoulder between her teeth. She struck back at him w/ all the concentrated power of her hips, the pistoning of her belly, & tried to throttle him w/in the gripping of her thighs.’

‘He had said he loved her. He wanted to marry her. In the end, the gambler played his last weak card, betting his life for Marilee’s chance to get away. All the stinging in her eyes wasn’t caused by desert wind as she thought that, with all his faults, Gilmore Frazier had gone to meet death with his head held as high as the finest gentleman’s.’

This is a gritty, well-written paperback…but it’s not a romance. Sex & bodice ripping don’t necessarily = romance novel, & this is one of those books. Heroine Marilee is sympathetic in her hard-luck trials, but “hero” Joe is a product of his era. He’s meant to be a douchebag; he might be a survivor, & handsome, & sometimes insightful…but romantic hero? Nope.

‘Bending over Timmy, she clung to him while his body surged & the back & forth movement began. There was no pain, only a knowing that he was inside her, & no loathing or disgust. But there was nothing else, either. She knew only a sense of giving, of pity & sadness because she wasn’t his beloved May & he wasn’t Robbie Dee. She wanted to cry for all of them, the dead & the living dead.’

‘Joe saw slow blood oozing down to blot Timmy’s jacket sleeve & pulled deeply upon his cigar before throwing the butt into the dusty road. That’s what came of letting somebody get close to you, so you got responsible for him. The poor little bastard was dreaming of his girl back home, a girl who was probably lying up with some bluebelly soldier right now, wiggling on his big cod like Timmy never lived.’