About To Hell You Ride
by Julia Talbot
83 pages / 33000 words
ISBN: 1-934166-65-0, 978-1-934166-65-9
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
Big Roy is a hard rock miner with a not so secret love for the theater, so when he hears a new troupe of actors are coming to the Telluride opera house to put on a Shakespeare play, he saddles his mule and makes the trek into town to see it.
The play doesn't disappoint, but the beautiful lead actor, Edward Clancy, certainly does. Clancy is rude and arrogant, and Roy figures he'd never have a chance with such a man. He's wrong, because Clancy needs some entertainment himself, being stuck in a Hellish mining town for the
long, snowy winter.
Come spring, though, Clancy knows he's going to want to move on, and he thinks Roy will be easy to forgot. Then tragedy strikes, and Clancy has to rethink his entire life. Can these two strike gold?
Review
Alex Draven, High Ball editor, writes:
Some of you no doubt fell in love with this story during it's tenure on the Turn of the Screw, but I don't really do the serials thing, so I had to wait for it to come out as a novella-length Screwdriver before I could dive in. And it was worth the wait.
JT plunges us right into the old Wold West, with miner, Roy Marsh making his way to the nearest town of a weekend, where he can indulge his unlikely taste for the theatre. He's an established and a well-respected figure, for all he's an unlikely patron of the arts, which is how come the editor of the town paper offers Roy a fancy hotel breakfast in exchange for Roy's opinion of the new theatre company to hit the boards for the paper's review. And Roy's review is as honest is he is: the play was grand, but the attitude of their star actor could use some work.
Sir Edward Clancy may have cut a fine figure on the stage, but when he is out-and-out rude to Roy, based on Roy's appearance and nothing more, it takes the shine right off Roy's memories of the evening. Of course, the fine Sir Edward can't take the bad review lying down, and resorts to joining the mule train out to the mine to confront Roy, and that's where their relationship starts to flower.
This twist on the age-old tale of adversaries becoming lovers across class boundaries, is a real fun ride, as Roy just isn't impressed with any of Sir Edward's tricks, and Clancy eventually comes to realise that there's a lot more to Roy than meets the eyes. And, of course, once you get past Roy's beat-up face, what meets the eye has a fair bit to recommend it too. Sir Edward may have to do some compare-and-contrast with some other lovers to really be sure of that, but he does figure it out in the end.
Because this is a Julia Talbot title, the sex scenes are hot enough to ward off any winter chill, and sweet and funny and unexpected by turns: both men learn a lot about each other and themselves in bed, which just adds to the joy of being along for the ride, and really, the journey is what this is all about. The second time Sir Clancy takes a mule up to the mines he's a very different man, and the way he feels about Roy has been transformed. This isn't a sappy romance, but it is a sweet one. It grows along with the characters, mixing lust and love with the sharp edge of life in the mountains, and gives a fresh twist to the old west setting.
A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Sample
Every Saturday during the summer, Big Roy Marsh made his way down from the boarding house he lived in, precariously attached to the mountain, all the way down into Telluride. It was a hellacious trip, but he owned his own mule, which made him something of a wealthy man, and he was big enough to keep her, too, which made him doubly lucky.
So on Saturdays, Roy climbed on his mule and went to town, stopping first at the livery to stable her, then going on to the barber for a shave and a bath. Roy always brought his own bread and cold meat in his saddlebags so he didn't have to eat in town, saving his money for what he truly wanted; a night at the Opera House.
Oh, the fellers laughed at big Roy, they truly did, telling him he was trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, going and getting all cultured, and that they were amazed that the fancy even let Roy in. Sometimes it amazed him, too, but he was always clean and always wore his Sunday go to meeting clothes, and his money was as good as anyone else's, wasn't it?
Sitting in the dark in the theater, watching the singers and actors and other stage folk, no one even noticed Roy with his scarred hands and his hulking shoulders, no one even cared. A man couldn't ask for more than that. He surely couldn't.