Book Review: The Scarlet Saddle by Mason Macrae

This novel was provided to me by NetGallery.com

for free for an honest review.

Title: The Scarlet Saddle

Author: Mason Macrae

Publisher: Pioneering Press

ASIN: B01M5EEKXQ

Genre: Western

Print Length: 165 pages

Plot synopsis: Weston Day has lived with distant relatives from the age of five, but when his father dies in a freak accident, he inherits the Skull cattle ranch. However, even getting to the ranch proves to be a challenge, as he is almost killed in an ambush on the way, and his welcome to the town of Peralta is far from friendly. It seems his father and the cattlemen once ruled the roost, but since his death, the sheepmen have seen the opportunity to turn the tables in their favour. Weston tries to not get involved in the animosity that exists between the cowmen and the sheepmen, but this proves impossible and his approach only serves to alienate him from both sides. A range war seems inevitable and Weston Day, on Skull Range, is stuck right in the middle.

Cover: A great cover for the genre.

I have to kick off by stating that I enjoyed this novel very much. However, I have a few niggles about it that will read as negative. The first is that I find Macrae’s style a little irksome. It’s not narrative, because that flows at a good tempo and the tension and build up is very good, but I find that he has some favourite phrases that he repeats frequently, as an author I appreciate this is a very easy thing to do, but Macrae does it a lot. Also there are several weird words, which, although they may be historically correct, give the narrative a peculiar feel. But these are stylistic issues that might be of little significance to other readers and the plot is great. It is peppered with twists and turns that keep you wondering what is going to happen next. I do think Macrae missed a trick by glossing over Weston Day’s journey to Peralta. I would like to have heard more about the attempted ambushes on Weston. Also I think the last showdown was rather rushed, much more could have been made of it, but, again, in the context of the novel I think these are minor points. The characterisation was good and I got a real sense of the physical and emotional characters of the main players. There was a fair amount of description of the landscape, but I, personally, never got a real sense of the setting in which the story took place. I had access to a pre-publication edition and there were a substantial number of typographical and formatting errors in it, which I assume were corrected for the final edition. In conclusion, I was tempted to give this novel a rating of 5 stars, because the plot is very good, but in the end I plumped for four. Nevertheless it is a terrific read and I would recommend it to any fan of the western genre.

What do others think?

At the time of writing, there were no reviews on either Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. There were five on Goodreads.com, four of which were 4* and one of 5*.

Other books by the same author (Click on the image to be taken to the Amazon book store).