The Outsider
Widowed heroine & her 9yo son are members of a small ascetic religious community called the Plains in Montana. Injured desperado Hero stumbles into their homestead & heroine tends his serious injuries. Having religious-outsider Hero living with heroine is met with silent disapproval by her community but heroine believes his fallen soul is worth saving & keeps him on. A land-greedy rancher isn't pleased with Hero's presence in her land either since Hero's interfering with his dastardly plans to force the Plains group to finally yield their coveted land to him. The dangers to their lives & their awkward r/s push Hero & heroine into paths they've never taken before. Williamson's writing was solid. The plot, romance, characters, & description were tightly-written. Dialogue was a mixture of plain-speaking & indirect via biblical verses & literary quotes yet it was understandable & flowed well. This book had psychological depth & was emotionally rich. Sexual tension built slowly into a powerful connection & made the briefly-detailed sex scenes enthralling. The characters especially Hero & heroine were flawed but had redemptive potential. The book comes together so poignantly in the end. I got teary with a surprising incident towards the end & thought it was going to end badly. But Williamson redeems it at the very end.
Highly recommended.
