Title: The Eagle and the Fox
Series: A Snowy Range Mystery: Book One
Author: Nya Rawlyns
Narrator: Nick J. Russo
Publisher: Self-Published
Run Time: 8 hours and 39 minutes
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: Nick J. Russo is an amazing narrator, and here he takes a pretty good story and makes it even better. Buy the book because the romance is adult and believable, and the hurt and loss suffered by both men is not so overbearing that you wonder how they manage to function.
Reviewed By: Mike
Blurb: Josiah Foxglove is given a second chance when he takes over his family’s spread in the shadow of the Snowy Range. A veteran of the Gulf War, he came back broken in body and spirit.
Marcus Colton buried his long-time lover and best friend three years ago. Lonely and still grieving, Marcus finds solace in protecting Petilune, a pretty girl with learning difficulties, who will surely become a victim of abuse and neglect without his help. But that doesn’t help him get through the long, dark nights.
When violence wracks the small community of Centurion, WY, it’s easy to place blame on Petilune’s mysterious new boyfriend, Ojibwe teen Kit Golden Eagle. It looks open and shut, but for Josiah and Marcus the facts simply don’t add up.
Something’s rotten in Centurion, something that smacks of a hate crime….
Review: Josiah Foxglove has returned from the Gulf War a broken and recovering man. His sister has spent almost all of her money to see to it he recovered as best as possible, but he still experiences bouts of PTSD, and he has a not-so-secret longing for the town’s store owner, Marcus Colton.
Marcus is nursing his own loss; his cousin as well as his longtime partner passed away several years ago and left Marcus barely exiting in his small Wyoming town. If it weren’t for his need to protect his store helper, Petilune, he may have drunk himself to death long ago. Petilune has an alcoholic mother, delinquent brothers, and may be mixed up in the local drug trade through her mysterious boyfriend, Kit Golden Eagle.
Nick J. Russo is an amazing narrator, and here he takes a pretty good story and makes it even better. He is able to give voice to each character and make them distinct. There are a lot of elements to this story, and each one of them is handled far above average by Russo. The interaction between Josh and Marcus, as they reveal their inner demons and still find a way to fall in love, is wonderful. The tension of Petilune, her boyfriend, her bully brothers, and the constant fight to keep Pet safe and peace in the town is given full voice. Even characters that the author has chosen to make one note and cliché get fair treatment with Russo’s experienced voice.
This is just book one of the series, so with any luck we will be treated to his completing the series; in lesser hands the winding plot would have been confusing. Buy this book if you like western settings, but this is no western. Buy the book because the romance is adult and believable, and the hurt and loss suffered by both men is not so overbearing that you wonder how they manage to function. Buy the book because the mystery is engaging, and the characters will surely have a life in the books to come.
You can buy The Eagle and the Fox here:
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