Texas Lily
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Lily Cassidy's childhood happiness is shattered when her father is murdered by political opponents. Powerless to act against her father's killer, she consents to a loveless marriage with Emmett Moss in exchange for his promise of vengeance. What follows this bitter deal leaves Lily standing on her own as the matriarch of a legend. When Emmett's niece arrives at his ranch, the lady-like Claire presents a cool contrast to tomboy Lily. Known for her common sense more than her beauty, Lily forges a friendship with the delicate Claire that outlasts everything in their lives except the land itself. Set in New Mexico Territory in the 1870s, Texas Lily is the story of Lily's courage and fortitude to save her family, Claire's love of an outlaw that sends her into and out of madness, and the profoundly intertwined fates of their offspring.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Weighed down by plot gimmicks and contrived soap-opera theatrics, this tale of Gilded Age New Mexico runs a poor second to Fackler's outstanding 1995 shoot-'em-up, Billy the Kid. Vowing revenge against the villain who ordered the assassination of her political activist father, resourceful 15-year-old Lily Cassidy enters into a marriage of convenience with 50-year-old cattle baron Emmett Moss, the most powerful man in the territory. He wants to breed her for a son, she wants him to kill the man responsible for her father's murder; but when Lily keeps her part of the deal, Emmett welshes. While his duplicity and brutish sexual attentions are earning him Lily's enmity, Emmett's niece has a steamy affair with a randy young gunfighter, and she too produces a son. Family jealousy and shame drive Emmett to kill Claire's illegitimate baby--though (as only Lily knows) there's been a cradle swap, and Emmet's crime is patricide. This isn't the last act of violence to touch Lily's life: a posse led by her husband shoots up her only true (unrequited) love, a handsome, young, gay gunfighter. And on it goes for 20 years of pain, murder, revenge, lust, hatred, disappointment, sadness, insanity and suicide. In this ponderous, ambitiously bleak,family saga, everyone's a loser.
