Sharon Sala Whippoorwill

Whippoorwill

Sharon Sala

Loveland Press, Mar 2003, $14.95, 256 pp.

ISBN: 0966269667

Though she is a prostitute in the White Dove Saloon, Letty Murphy prays every night that one day her prince will come to Lizard Flats, Kansas Territory to take her away from her pathetic existence. So far the love of her life has failed to arrive so Letty does what she has done since she was orphaned at twelve, turn a trick to survive. Town drunk Eulis Potter earns beers cleaning the saloon. He also supplements his drinking with digging graves.

Rumor spreads across the Great Plains that an eastern preacher is coming to Lizard Flats to perform a marriage ceremony. Numerous lost souls needing prayers to include funeral, birth, marriage, and confession arrive in town. However, the preacher shows his calling when he sleeps with Letty only to drop dead in her bed. Frightened that a mob will rip her limb by limb, a desperate Letty asks Eulis to help her. He changes from a mumbling drunk into an eastern preacher, but as he brings salvation to all, who will bring solace to the two neediest souls in the territory?

WHIPPOORWILL is a great western tale that is loaded with colorful characters, as Sharon Sala, known for her romantic suspense, will not lack ideas for future novels. The magnificent multiple subplots superbly blend into a final cohesive story line. However, it is the two most pathetic outcasts this side of Poker Flats that grip the heart of the reader with hope of love leading to redemption for them and all the other seemingly local losers. Fans of historical tales of the old west will appreciate this descriptive winner and want more stories set in Lizard Flats.

Harriet Klausner