Publisher - Bravado

Published - Out Now

Price - £4.02 kindle eBook

Hazel Smith rides west on a mare she won at a poker table.

When she reaches the town of Silence, she finds a tiny but welcoming community bookended by a church and a saloon. A good place to die. But the saloon has no mirror behind the bar, and nobody but the priest himself goes to the church. The only horse in the only stable is hers.

In her final hours, Hazel has to make a choice between living forever and making her death matter.

A final stand is a moment of high tension in any drama. The stakes are high and sometimes the outcome can appear futile. That’s evolved in westerns as to the idea of a gunfighter’s last stand and of course if you add the supernatural anything can happen. In Jennifer R Donohue’s elegant supernatural western that idea is finely told in a tale of a last stand and a final choice.

Hazel Smith has been riding the deserts of the Wild West for a long time and knows her final days are coming soon. Her search for a cure for a terminal disease has been futile even if she’s learnt a little simple magic along the way. Her final destination is the small town of Silence where three people all try to sway her final choices. But Silence has a way of changing people.

This tale has a beautiful melancholic approach to it as Hazel narrated her last adventure. We sense a woman who’s loved her life the way she wanted to and would ideally like to stay true to herself. A tale of western saloon, card games and all the classic parts of a western beckon. Yet slowly we sense a strange mystery at the heart of this place. It seems empty, no one goes to church and everyone is keeping a secret. Hazel bonds with the town’s mysterious priest but also has a two other people keen to become friends.

Donohue keeps us guessing all the way and it’s a clear something supernatural is at work but exactly what? It’s a somber mournful tale of a final stand and yet has its own heroics, rage against the duping of the light and always trying to do the right thing. Well worth a read!