With superb storytelling, Rogers gives us a feel for the politics of the time and the life of the Mexicans and those Americans who chose to live in the West while she weaves a complex tale of a difficult, often combative, relationship between two strong-willed people.

And Morgan is all too willing to take advantage of the girl’s innocence. Though Ginny, an innocent red-haired beauty, has many suitors, she is drawn to the handsome Morgan who becomes the scout for her father’s wagon train. Though he speaks French and lived in Paris for a time, he also lived among the Comanches and has become a fast gun, so he can take care of himself. Morgan has few scruples and almost no morals, taking the women he wants when he wants them. One of those men is Steve Morgan, a half-Mexican former Union Army officer who is working undercover for the US government. On a wagon train from San Antonio to California, Ginny and her stepmother will face more than the hardships and Indians of the Western plains they will face the schemes of men who want to make sure Maximilian’s French troops never see that gold. Ginny Brandon was the French convent-raised daughter of an ambitious US Senator from California who didn’t mind putting his wife and daughter at risk to smuggle gold into Mexico to support the French military working for Maximilian. I’m not overly sensitive but we are talking gruesome! However, and this is the reason for 4 not 5 stars, there are some parts in this story where the hero and heroine go through such horrifying trials, I just had to skip over them. Set in the late 1800s in the American West and Mexico (during the reign of the Austrian who became Emperor Maximilian), it’s a fast-paced, moving story that will keep you up late at night reading. Published in 1974, it was also one of the first to throw open the bedroom door and include subjects like rape and violence against the heroine, all woven into an intricate plot.

Her writing is superb and her storytelling truly excellent. This was Rogers’ first novel and it became a best seller and an all time classic in modern historical romance.

Sweet savage love book