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Synopsis:

Magheen Fitzgerald could have never predicted her fate the day she left her native Ireland for the shores of America. Blinded by tales of gold and great wealth, she believed that she’d reclaim her family’s fortune in a gold mine in Colorado. But when the stagecoach she was traveling in overturned in a storm, she was lucky to escape with her life. And now she was snowbound, trapped in a primitive shack with the most virile man she’d ever known. Despite the cold outside, Magheen felt a heat building in her like never before…

DANGEROUS SETTING

Daniel Calcord ventured to Colorado for a change of pace, for some excitement. But he got much more than he bargained for in the shapely form of the Irish beauty he had saved from a stagecoach wreck. As he nursed her back to health, Daniel couldn’t help himself from caressing her silky flesh, her sensuous curves. From the flash in her emerald eyes to the fiery light in her auburn hair, she enchanted him. It was only a matter of time before he would take her in his arms and make her his own…
COLORADO JEWEL

MILD SPOILERS 😉

The Book and the Characters

This review is of Colorado Jewel, a standalone by Cate Brandt. (Zebra Heartfire, April 1989).

Heroine: Magheen Fitzgerald. Red hair, emerald eyes.

Hero: Daniel Calcord. Black hair, blue eyes. Businessman/lawyer.

The Plot

Colorado Jewel opens in Colorado, early September 1878. Daniel Calcord, the hero of the book and a businessman with his fingers in many pies, is heading toward one of his enterprises, a silver mine in the town of Leadville. His trip is delayed, however, as Daniel helps to rescue Magheen Fitzgerald, the heroine of the book, from a stagecoach accident. He nurses her back to health and they face many perils, one of which is their attraction to each other.

When one of Maggie’s brothers, Patrick, a priest, catches them in a compromising position, they are compelled to marry. Their engagement doesn’t go well.

Maggie and Daniel do eventually marry. Sexually, they’re compatible; in other ways, not so much. Things don’t improve when the workers in Leadville’s mines protest working conditions, leading to violence between the miners and the mine owners, with Maggie in the middle.

Later, Daniel’s mother, Mayse, shows up and causes problems for both Daniel and Maggie. Those problems endanger Maggie’s life.

In the end, Maggie and Daniel reconcile, have a child, and their Happily Ever After.

Upside

Aside from finishing the book… Maggie is a fairly nice character.

Downside

Daniel, who is a hot-and-cold blowing bastard.

First, he wants Maggie. Then, he doesn’t want her. This goes on for the entire book. He talks at Maggie, not with her, which creates almost all of their issues. Daniel is self-centered, egotistical, condescending, demeaning, and insulting to her. He accuses her of things that are not true. By the way, he never apologizes. There is no actual romance or character development, and the storylines, such as they are, zip back and forth without actually reaching a destination.