Hurrah!! At last... a spaghetti-western book for girls!
This was a cool book. I've not read many westerns in my time admittedly, but the ones I have read; Lonesome Dove and Comanche Moon by McMurtry are among the best. Can you class Cold Mountain a western too...? Anyway, this book has it all. Bandits, outlaws, robbers, religious do-gooders, gun-fights - great! And all told through the eyes of a woman/girl - 15 year old Lily.
The story follows mother-less Lily and her relationship with Marion Beatty, a supposedly no-good, bank-robbing murderous charmer. Bonner does well with Marion's character. You never really work out if he's a good guy or a bad guy. Marion and his brothers are known throughout the county as trouble-makers, but Marion always insists that it's his brothers who make the trouble, not him. So you have to make your mind up yourself really. I base my judgement on the way he treats Lily, so i reckon he's a good guy :)
It's quite a sweet little story - not very long, won't take ages to read. But you really get on board with Lily and Marion and their plight. Lily leads a pretty meaningless existence looking after her younger brothers and sister, and her farmer father, all of whom rely on her too heavily to take the place of her dead mother. When Lily meets Marion she realises what love can be like, and what life outside of her family circle can be. Her and Marion arrange times to meet in secret because her father will not allow her to associate herself with a Beatty. Then after a Beatty led rampage on a newly built church, Marion and Lily run away together but unfortunately the law is on their tail. Marion is caught and taken back to McDade and a now pregnant Lily follows and returns briefly home when she is accepted back in disgrace. But realising she can not live without Marion and can not go back to her old life, she makes plans to stand by his side and to help him to escape the jail-house.
This was a cool book. I've not read many westerns in my time admittedly, but the ones I have read; Lonesome Dove and Comanche Moon by McMurtry are among the best. Can you class Cold Mountain a western too...? Anyway, this book has it all. Bandits, outlaws, robbers, religious do-gooders, gun-fights - great! And all told through the eyes of a woman/girl - 15 year old Lily.
The story follows mother-less Lily and her relationship with Marion Beatty, a supposedly no-good, bank-robbing murderous charmer. Bonner does well with Marion's character. You never really work out if he's a good guy or a bad guy. Marion and his brothers are known throughout the county as trouble-makers, but Marion always insists that it's his brothers who make the trouble, not him. So you have to make your mind up yourself really. I base my judgement on the way he treats Lily, so i reckon he's a good guy :)
It's quite a sweet little story - not very long, won't take ages to read. But you really get on board with Lily and Marion and their plight. Lily leads a pretty meaningless existence looking after her younger brothers and sister, and her farmer father, all of whom rely on her too heavily to take the place of her dead mother. When Lily meets Marion she realises what love can be like, and what life outside of her family circle can be. Her and Marion arrange times to meet in secret because her father will not allow her to associate herself with a Beatty. Then after a Beatty led rampage on a newly built church, Marion and Lily run away together but unfortunately the law is on their tail. Marion is caught and taken back to McDade and a now pregnant Lily follows and returns briefly home when she is accepted back in disgrace. But realising she can not live without Marion and can not go back to her old life, she makes plans to stand by his side and to help him to escape the jail-house.
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This is one of those stories which leaves you hanging at the end. But I found out recently that the story continues somewhat in Looking After Lily, also by Bonner, which is told through the eyes of Marion's brother Haywood, who he and Lily has to leave when they run away after a good old fashioned western-style shoot out in the town high street. I really enjoyed this book anyway. Lily has guts and determination and her attempts to tame her wild gun-slinging husband, although vain, make for some good story-telling :)
