The Romantics Book

Peter Brandvold is one of the rising stars of Western fiction. His ability to create three-dimensional characters within the framework of the traditional Western means that his books appeal to those who love Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour as well as to fans of Loren D. Estleman and Larry McMurtry.

In The Romantics, Brandvold uses a traditional set-up—the search for lost Spanish gold in the American Southwest—as a backdrop for a thrilling adventure shot through with danger and heroism, with greed and jealousy, and with love and honor.

The daughter of a Hispanic landowner, Marina Clark has been given a map that purports to lead the way to a hidden cache of Spanish gold. To her husband, thismap is the key to restoring his family's fortune and honor, both lost during the Civil War. Though he won his wife in a poker game, Adrian Clark is fiercely possessive of her, dreaming of the day he will stride through his hometown with this dusky beauty on his arm. Marina does not love Adrian, but is bound to him by her pride and his promise that once he has the gold, she may use some to ransom her illegitimate daughter from a religious order.

The Clarks' guide through sun- and sand-blasted lands is Jack Cameron, a deadly shot who has won fame as an Indian scout. He'd originally set out to capture Perro Loco, and Apache warrior, and claim U.S. Army gold as a reward, but the pursuit ended with the Indian's body at the bottom of a steep-sided ravine and no money for Cameron. Unable to pay his men or the people of his home valley who are depending on the reward money, he agrees to guide the Clarks on their quest, even though he firmly believes there is no gold at the place marked on the map.

It should be a simple matter of avoiding marauding Apaches and Mexican rurales, but Cameron swiftly falls in love with the beautiful Marina. Wary of Clark's jealousy and uneasy in love, Cameron fights his feelings even when he understands that Marina loves him too.

Additional complications arise in the person of Gaston Bachelard, a former Confederate Army officer turned bandit, and his partner, a Mexican revolutionary. Having heard of the map to the lost gold, Bachelard and his men are hot on the Clarks' trail.