Fallen Land by Taylor Brown: Book Review

Fallen Land
By Taylor Brown
Published by St. Martin's Press, 2016
Print: $25.99
Ebook: $12.99

15 year old Callum is a good example of what happens when you fall in with the wrong crowd. An orphaned immigrant from Ireland he became a horse thief and then a blockade runner when the Civil War started with an older man named Swinney looking out for him. When Swinney joins a bloodthirsty band of Confedrate raiders, led by a man known as "The Colonel", Callum follows him. While supposedly fighting on the side of the South, the Colonel and his men roam the wilds killing, raping, and pillaging wherever the opportunity presents itself.

While never really taking to his new line of work, Callum draws the line when one of his compatriots attempts to rape a young woman named Ava whose home they've come upon. Ava's father and brother joined the militia and are missing while her mother died when she was a child. She's alone and had been fending for herself until the Colonel's men arrived.

When Callum takes a stand to protect Ava, the situation quickly deteriorates and leads to killings and Callum and Ava fleeing on a horse. They're trying to make it to the Southern coast where Callum believes he has some blood relatives who will take them in. All the while, his former "friends" are trying to track him down and kill him. The path to the coast is filled with desperate people on both sides of the war that might also try to kill Callum and Ava if they see any advantage to themselves in it.

I really enjoyed this book. I don't read a lot of Westerns but when I do, I really like them. Essentially, that's what this book is, a Western. I could see it being made into a movie by Clint Eastwood very easily. It was entertaining and suspenseful while still having a soul and taking you to deeper place. The romance between Callum and Ava is handled very well by the author and you get a real sense of the love and affection between the two. Their love, at least to me, isn't caused by the sharing of the closeness of Death. You feel that no matter when these two met or in what circumstances, they would have fallen in love.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone that likes Westerns, historical novels, or just plain good ole books! I will definitely read Taylor Brown's next work. This one showed a lot of promise.

My Grade: A-