Set in the 1850s, Fevered Hearts is an epic saga…

When the spirit fever struck a town, a village or an outpost, it left few if any survivors. The white man blamed the Indian saying they used their mojo on them. The Indians blamed the white man for angering the spirits. The survivors knew it didn’t matter. The Fevered were forever changed.

When death seemed preferable…

Mourning his mate drove fevered wolf shifter Cody out of Texas, but a brother’s need drags him back from the brink.

…and good deeds never go unpunished…

Gypsy princess Mariska only wants to protect her people and her freedom, but a dangerous choice puts her on a collision course with an angry wolf.

…the best thing that could happen to him…

When Cody touches Mariska, his wolf cannot escape the hunger that fills him. For Mariska, Cody’s touch brings her a pleasure she never imagined, but is it enough to heal his fractured soul?

…was the last thing he expected.

As danger stalks all three of them, they must confront who they are or risk losing Cody forever.

His wolf. His woman. His way.

You shouldn’t be surprised that I am reviewing this so quickly. After all I did stay up late to finish up book 1 and start this one. We met all our main characters in Marshal of Hel Dorado, so now we get to know another couple of them up close and personal.

After Scarlett and Sam’s wedding, Kid the youngest of the Kane siblings sneaks off. Frustrated with his father’s expectations and his lack of meeting them, he rides off heading west and just away. Another wedding guest is planning to run as well, although not for the sake of getting away. Cody is a wolf shifter, that is his gift/curse. His wolf had decided a long time ago that Scarlett was his mate, but that wasn’t a mutual thing between Cody and his wolf. Cody loves Scarlett as his sister and nothing more, now she is happily married to Sam. His wolf is mourning the loss of his mate and wants to die from the rejection. As Cody sets off for the wilderness he scents Kid, and senses he needs their support, companionship or something. Kid’s need changes the path they were going to take.

Traveling through the wilderness can be a bit boring but Kid definitely livens things up for Cody. His visits into towns more often than not include more than just supplies. But the most exciting one came as Kid goes to gather supplies before they headed into the Mountain passes. This involves saving a virgin from her fate in a brothel and helping the other girl with her. This is a favorite scene.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Not yet,” Cody growled. “But the night’s young.”

His whore escort pushed at the door and Kid opened it wider. Cody caught sight of one woman, nude on the bed lazy with satisfaction and stinking of Kid, and a second woman sitting huddled on the far side still dressed. She smelled of terror, not sex.

Kid followed his look and scowled. “Leave her alone. She’s terrified enough as it is.”
Biting back a scathing comment, Cody lifted his brows. “Get dressed.”

“Fine, but we need to take her with us.”

“What?” Cody’s wasn’t the only one to give voice to that question. The girl that had to be Delilah went pale. Kid jerked away from him and did the damndest thing, bare ass naked, his cock hanging damp and used between his thighs, he walked over to kneel in front of the woman.

The whore on the bed and Cody’s escort turned, like little moths following a candle, to watch him. Kid gathered Delilah’s hands in his, careful to keep his nude body from touching her anywhere else.

Though his voice was pitched low, Cody had no trouble hearing him. The violence below was escalating, bottles smashed, tables were being overturned and the steady thump of fist on flesh. Across the hall, a door opened but Cody shook his head at the woman peeking out and she shut the door quickly.

“Delilah,” Kid’s low voice was smooth, silky and relaxed. “You don’t belong here. You don’t want to trade yourself for gold and you don’t have to. Let me help you. I can send you somewhere you can be safe.”

Was the Kane boy serious? Cody sighed, but the wolf’s rage seemed to quiet under Kid’s words. Delilah relaxed, color flushing her pale cheeks.

“I promise you, no one will touch you. I’ll get you out of here and you’ll be safe. You can start fresh, no questions.”

A clomp on the stairs jolted Cody into the room. He shut the door and glared at Kid. Whatever spell he was working on the girl worked because she was nodding her head. Kid rose and grabbed his clothes.

“How many are coming?” That question he threw at Cody.

“Three, maybe more. Some trapper wants her virginity and since it’s still intact and you just told her it would stay that way, we’re going to have to get her out without being seen.”

“We can do that.” The whore on the bed scooted off and grabbed her own clothes. She dressed faster than Kid did. “Simone, can you hold them off?”

As fast as the first whore dressed, Simone shrugged off her own clothes. “Yes.”

Nudity wasn’t something that fascinated Cody, but the shucking of clothes on and off verged on the absurd. Until ‘Simone’ pointed at him.

“Strip.”

“Excuse me?” The wolf rallied at the command.

“She wants them to think you two have the room,” Kid explained jerking on his boots, before securing his gun belt.

“I’m not fucking her.” Cody spit the words out.

“You’re damn right you’re not fucking me,” Simone snapped back. “You haven’t paid for it, but you have to have some clothes off or it won’t work.”

Cody scowled.

“Cody,” Kid stepped between him and the lean built whore with her too small breasts and their erect little nipples. She stank of another man. It had been bad enough that she rubbed that stench on him in the first place, now they wanted him to get naked with her.

Show or no show, he’d rather go join the brawl.

“Please. Help me help the girl.” The request cooled the anger raging in the wolf. He looked at the terrified girl with her exotically dark eyes and thick black hair. She was innocent. She smelled of female. Hurt, scared and lonely female.

The wolf relented.
Brave Are the Lonely (Fevered Hearts #2) (pp. 40-41).Kindle Edition.

Those ladies are sent escorted to Dorado and the boys travel onward toward California. Then our tale takes a major turn as we meet our leading lady, a dark haired gypsy named Mariska, now Cody and his wolf will have some major decisions to make. We also get our first real look at the elusive Wyatt the eldest of the fevered.

This is in no way your typical Western romance. I laughed, I cried and breathed more than one sigh of relief. Once again I stayed up way past my bedtime and started the next book in the series Micah and Mrs. Miller.

5 Contented Purrs for Heather!

Heather Long

National bestselling author, Heather Long, likes long walks in the park, science fiction, superheroes, Marines, and men who aren’t douche bags. Her books are filled with heroes and heroines tangled in romance as hot as Texas in the summertime.

From paranormal historical westerns to contemporary military romance, Heather might switch genres, but one thing is true in all of her stories–her characters drive the books.

When she’s not wrangling her menagerie of animals, she devotes her time to family and friends she considers family. She believes if you like your heroes so real you could lick the grit off their chest, and your heroines so likable, you’re sure you’ve been friends with women just like them, you’ll enjoy her worlds as much as she does.

Set in the 1850s, Fevered Hearts is an epic saga…In the shadows of the Old West, that untamed land, live bands of outlaws and outsiders. In a time when fevers could fell whole towns, these few survivors are marked. Marked…and forever changed.

Sam Kane is the oldest brother, the steadfast son and the confident marshal. He’s never met a problem too hot to handle until a gang behind a string of robberies across the territory set their sights on his town. Now with the bank’s gold inexplicably missing from a locked safe, the town hunting the elusive thieves and a passionate redhead with a fiery secret in his jail, Sam has his hands full.

Scarlett Morning Star lived in seclusion in the mountains of West Texas most of her life. She longs for adventure, but with seven very protective older brothers, adventure is hard to come by. When she tags along uninvited on their latest escapade, she is left behind during a bank robbery and finds herself in the custody of the very sexy town marshal.

The town wants to lynch her, the Marshal wants answers and her brothers want her back, can Scarlett keep it together or will her explosive secret burn them all?</strong

I don’t know what I was expecting when I picked up this book. I figured a historical western romance. Boy was I wrong and in a very good way!

Heather Long has incorporated the old west with her own unique flare. In this first book of the series we meet the players from the very beginning. By that I mean the original onset of the fever and how those survivors came to be. The interesting fact here is that each of these survivors has a gift or a curse depending on your point of view.

A gang has been robbing banks of gold, gold belonging to the US Army. Marshal Sam Kane is watching the bank from the shadows, his brother, the one they call Kid, is in Sam’s usual spot relaxing as Sam would. This gang would not get away with his town’s gold.

Nothing more than a couple of flashes inside the bank gives away that someone is in the bank. Now the fun begins, as Sam takes into custody a beautiful red-haired thief while the rest of the gang escapes with the gold.

Here is a favorite passage as Kane takes Scarlett to his family’s ranch for her protection. One that had me giggling.
“You should sleep,” Sam said, surprised at the gruff note in his voice. They’d been riding for nearly an hour and it would take at least four more to reach the ranch. The ranch was twenty miles as the crow flew from the town it helped to foster into existence. The Kanes controlled nearly three thousand acres and they’d be on Kane land within the hour, but the bunkhouses, corrals and main house were some distance beyond that.

It was a two hour flat out ride, but nestled in the deep bosom of night, he’d keep Corona’s pace to an easy loping walk avoiding pitfalls, stones and exhaustion. The night was a cool blanket, with a northern breeze ruffling along his neck, occasionally stirring a red lock up to tease his nose.

She smelled of sunshine, horses and something distinctly feminine, without the overwhelming lemon verbena favored by the town girls or the eucalyptus and horse lineament that ranch women often reminded him of. The feminine scent was sweet cakes and fresh baked bread rolled into one.  

“This isn’t the most comfortable way to sleep.” The low hushed response prickled with irritation and just the barest hint of entitlement.

“It’s the best we can do for now, unless you think sleeping at the end of a noose is more to your liking.”

“Could you at least move your gun?” The complaint was more plaintive than vitriolic. “It keeps jabbing me in the back.”

He was glad for the darkness, for it shielded the heat that ruddied his face. That wasn’t his gun. He shifted in the saddle, easing her forward and then back so her bottom nestled on his opposite thigh. She let out a sigh of relief, her body softening and settling against him. The new position teased him with even more of her scent, but kept that sweet bottom from rubbing on his arousal.

He was male and she was definitely attractive, but she was a thief. He tried to tell his body that, but it didn’t care. It was more interested in the soft curves, sweet fresh scent and the little soft sighs she kept making.

“Better?” It went against his nature to ask, but he liked the sound of her voice.
“Yes. Thank you.”

“If you don’t want to sleep. You could answer some questions.” Where the hell had that come from? He’d just wanted her to go to sleep so he could stop tormenting himself and now he wanted to add to his own tension.

Corona nickered and he forced his legs to relax. He didn’t need to accidentally urge the mare into a faster speed. The loping walk kept rubbing his prisoner against him as it was.

She was silent for so long, he wondered if she had fallen asleep. They were leaving the main trailhead, Corona picking her way across the rocks to the downward track that wound through the hills. He knew the moment they crossed onto Kane land.

He always did.

The pressure on his chest lightened, his lungs expanded and even the air tasted sweeter. He took a deep lungful, but it wasn’t just Kane cedar and sage that teased him, but the rich scent of summer raspberries.

“It would depend on the question.” She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. Oddly, that pleased him more than cooperation. He liked the independent fire that blazed in her eyes, the warning snap in her gaze and the temper that sparked when Ryker and his boys burst into the Marshal’s Office. He’d watched her watching them.

It hadn’t been fear clenching her fists.

His little redhead was a fighter.
Marshal of Hel Dorado (Fevered Hearts #1) (pp. 27-30).Kindle Edition.

This couple have much to overcome. The main one being the robbery and the threat of hanging. But also her brothers and his have some interesting conflicts. A page turning read that so engrossed me I stayed up way past my bedtime and then started the next book in the series.

5 Contented Purrs for Heather!

Heather Long

National bestselling author, Heather Long, likes long walks in the park, science fiction, superheroes, Marines, and men who aren’t douche bags. Her books are filled with heroes and heroines tangled in romance as hot as Texas in the summertime.

From paranormal historical westerns to contemporary military romance, Heather might switch genres, but one thing is true in all of her stories–her characters drive the books.

When she’s not wrangling her menagerie of animals, she devotes her time to family and friends she considers family. She believes if you like your heroes so real you could lick the grit off their chest, and your heroines so likable, you’re sure you’ve been friends with women just like them, you’ll enjoy her worlds as much as she does.