Silver Flame Book

This sequel to Blaze has just as many misunderstandings, just as much distrust, just as much sexxx, but not many of the redeeming qualities that the prequel had. The first half was very good, filled with minimal silly misunderstandings. But the second half... ouch.

Trey Braddock-Black is the wealthy, spoiled, only child to one of the richest families in late 19th Century Montana. The fact that he is half-Absarokee only lends him a huge family and support system should something befall him. Like his father was before his marriage, he's a womanizer, cutting a swathe through all the women in Montana. He diverts every attempt to get him to the altar, including many false claims of paternity. Empress Jordan is a the eldest orphaned daughter of a disgraced French Comte, and is now responsible for getting herself and her four younger siblings through the rough Montana seasons. When she has no other choice, she goes into town and auctions herself at the local brothel, but she makes the stipulation that it's only for three weeks. Trey has never bidded, nevertheless bought someone, in one of these auctions, but when the young white woman is about to fall into the hands of the one man in town with the most rough sexual predilections, he tops all the other bids beyond match: $50,000.

Within the next month, he's shot, she's accepted into his home to care for him, she overhears guests talking about all his many women, she runs away, he follows her and enmeshes himself in her family life, she gets sick, and they all return to the ranch. Trey and Empress exchange ILY's and are planning to be married. This is the half-way point of the book.

Then real disaster strikes: one of Trey's former lovers, Valerie, has constructed a marriage trap so skillful that it not only affects Trey's life, but the life of two of his clansmen who will be hanged for rape if Trey doesn't agree. Valerie, of course, is pregnant and claims it is Trey's, even though there's no biological way it could be. But Trey has no other choice and agrees. That's right, the hero marries someone else. Empress is devastated, but she stays on (?!?!?!) because she can see that Trey doesn't have a usual marriage. After all, he comes home to her every night, doesn't he? But it's not too long before Valerie sinks her malicious talons into Empress's hope, and drives Empress away. With the money she has left from Trey, she takes the children back to France to reclaim her father's title for her younger brother. And, lookie there, she's pregnant, too. But after all the other paternity claims that Trey laughed off, would he take this one seriously? She's not willing to find out.

Trey can't follow because of his marriage and impending "fatherhood" and as time passes, he remembers Empress less for who he thought she was and more for what his cynical mind concocts as her motives. He only knows that she left after he couldn't marry her and that he hasn't received a letter yet from her, although the children occasionaly write. When Valerie gives birth and finds that the child is half-breed, she gives up parental rights, and Trey is quickly enamored of his adopted daughter. She becomes the center of his whole world, wiping away the memories of Empress.

But when Trey receives a letter that Empress almost died, he leaves his daughter with his parents and jumps on the first steamer to France, only to find Empress glowingly healthy, vital, and in the middle of a dozen male suitors. Oh, and he finds out later that she's given birth to his son. They exchanged heated words and have punishing sex, but IMO they never really reconnect after he chases her down. And neither apologize or even seem to feel sorry at all for their mistrust. In my mind, nothing was resolved: Empress will probably still jump to the wrong conclusions whenever another woman claims Trey's affections; Trey will probably doubt Empress's fidelity again, and the cycle will continue. Disappointing end to what had potential to be a very good Western romance. C-