Outlaw in Paradise

July 31, 1997
Mean-looking gunfighter Jesse Gault rides into the peaceful gold-rush town of Paradise, Ore., past Swensen's Good Eats & Drinks and Noble Fir Street and lots of other places with homespun names worthy of Lake Wobegone. Dressed all in black with a patch over one eye and spurs that make a fearsome sound when he jangles along, he shakes up the population without having to fire a shot--which is a good thing, because Jesse can't hit the broad side of a barn. He is a fraud and a con man who pretends to be a killer so that people with something to hide will pay him not to shoot them. Underneath is a sweet guy dying to raise horses and whose dreams intersect with those of Cadence "Cady" McGill, the owner of Paradise's Rogue saloon, who herself dreams of taking off her corsets and tending an orchard. Gaffney (To Love and to Cherish) is a fresh, funny voice in romance and in Cady she has created a spunky heroine who finds herself a hero and a happy ending without being reduced to a cloying cliche.