Dark Rider

By: Lorraine Kennedy

Narrated by: Susan Eichhorn Young

Loving the enemy takes on an entirely different meaning for an outlaw's daughter and the bounty hunter she believes killed her father.

A dark rider lurks in the shadows of Angel Beaumont's world, waiting and watching.

Angel is unaware of the danger stalking her when she sets out to kill the notorious, Hunter Night. What begins as a mission to bring her father's killer to justice; turns into a tangled web of dark family secrets, and murder.

An outlaw's daughter and a half-breed bounty hunter traverse the canvas of the Old West, setting their trail ablaze with an unquenchable passion that takes these two adversaries by storm.

They must come to terms with their passion and trust each other before they become the next victims of an evil older than mankind?

©2014 Lorraine Kennedy (P)2014 Lorraine Kennedy

Scattershot old west, romantic horror story. Huh?!

It felts as if this was the cliff notes version of a romance/western/horror book. Like Rooster Cogburn meets Dracula, if Cogburn were part Indian and fell in love with the daughter seeking vengeance. A two hour novella romance befits a wham, bam, quickie romance. But, the outline for this story should have supported a full length book. Too many plots bouncing around like pinballs.

This story starts in pre-Civil War Nevada, with Angel stubbornly tracking Hunter, a black haired, blue eyed, part Lakota Native American bounty hunter. She’s bent on killing him because, even though he’s a bounty hunter, she faults him for collecting his bounty by killing her outlaw father.

Spoilers:

As doggedly as she pursues him, however, she immediately agrees to marry him when he threatens to turn her into slavers for being 1/8 Black- because she’s suddenly a pushover instead of an independent woman who travelled the Wild West alone tracking down a killer with her gun. He “honorably” holds off touching her for one whole night, then within the next two days, Angel the virgin gets oral sex, has sex, then gives oral sex.

Her vengeance quest evaporates without any real reason for her to have changed her mind... and then suddenly, once we hear her father was tortured before his death, the story switches to a horror story about a magical Loa who killed her father and is now tracking Angel. Which for some reason sends them to her father’s home town in Louisiana.

In Louisiana, we have further plots and backstories about Hunter’s past paramore. And a rushed misunderstanding by Angel that was eye-rollingly predictable... although resolved within seconds of it being revealed. The monster is revealed, Hunter saves the day, and they love each other. The End. Yes, everything was that fast: fast conflict, fast resolution, fast sex.

Side note: there’s some really awkward dialogue ... “How dare you violate me in this manner?” “It must have been the promiscuous way you reacted to my kiss.”