On a whole, I liked this first book in the Lone Star Legacy trilogy pretty well. I loved Clay and I liked Jerusalem Ann. I liked most of the characters, actually. And the history of Texas always fascinates me. Though that ended up getting in my way a bit here.
Morris sets this during the time leading up to the Texas Revolution in the 1830s, and he has a whole lot of scenes where real-life people like Colonel Travis and Jim Bowie discuss why they are trying to separate Texas from Mexico. Scenes that really have nothing to do with the book's characters. They're just there to explain things. It wasn't necessarily a bad way to explain Texan history... but it also made the actual story come to a screeching halt every now and then, especially in the last third of the book. And, you know... if I, who love Old West history, got increasingly annoyed by having history lessons inserted that way, I am betting most readers were downright vexed.
I can see what Morris was trying to do, but it would have been way more effective and enjoyable to have the book's main characters themselves discuss these things!
So, that left me feeling like this is a four-star read. I'll try the next book, which I suspect won't have that issue so much because the Texas Revolution should be over pretty early in the book. We'll see.
Particularly Good Bits:
"I wish things would go wrong one at a time, but they never do" (p. 214).
"I found out one thing after all these years. And that's never to run away from problems. As sure as you do, a worse one will meet you" (p. 350).
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for allusions to men consorting with prostitutes, drunkenness, a family with illegitimate children, women worrying about being captured by Native Americans and assaulted, and scenes of frontier violence.
