FFB Review: By Blood Bound: The Smith & Sons Saga by Wayne D. Dundee

For this first Friday of March, I offer you another repeat review. I am sorry about the repeats, but I can’t help it. It is very hard to do what I am doing and keep the blog going as Sandi so desperately wanted me to do. Today marks thirteen weeks since she left us. The days blur together and the weeks pass, but the numbing grief remains unabated. I miss her so much I don’t have words for it. For the rest of the links and hopefully far more upbeat blogs than mine, check out Patti Abbott’s blog.

By Blood Bound: The Smith & Sons Saga is a novella in three parts reflecting its publication as a series of short stories in the anthology Fathers: 12 Tales of the American West published by Western Trail Blazer Publishing.

As the book opens Marshall Silas Smith is returning to the town of Clancy, Nebraska on a late October morning. The air is chilly for the forty-four year old Silas as well as his horses. For the men whose bodies are tied to the saddles of the horses he is leading back to town the temperature of the air or anything else no longer matters. Unfortunately that includes a young deputy by the name of Wiley Patton whom Marshall Smith took with him on the mission to track down and capture the two dangerous robbers. Marshall Smith, despite the painful task ahead of him to talk to the parents of the dead deputy, is glad to be back.

That was until he was told by his chief deputy that a certain woman by the name of Mrs. Magda Corvelle has arrived in town by the way of the stage. She wants to see the Marshall as soon as possible and the news she brings is not good. Due to recent events the Marshall needs to take a leave of absence and return to Kentucky and see about his sons. Two boys who are now grown men and made it clear long ago they wanted nothing more to do with him after he came home from the Civil War. Whether they know it or not they need their Dad now more than ever and Silas Smith intends to get back into contact with his estranged sons.

That will prove far more easily said than done for a variety of reasons.

This western novella from Wayne Dundee is a very good one featuring plenty of action and angst. The main characters involved are flawed and yet, for the most part, decent human beings who are doing the best they can. That often happens at the barrel of a gun as the bad guys are many in this trilogy of linked short stories.

If you are not reading the books of Wayne D. Dundee you are making a mistake. If you aren’t, By Blood Bound: The Smith & Sons Saga is a good one to start on your Wayne D. Dundee reading list.

By Blood Bound: The Smith & Sons Saga

Wayne D. Dundee

http://fromdundeesdesk.blogspot.com/

Bil-Em-Ri Media

Self-Published

December 2014

ASIN: B00QGAR588

E-Book

130 Pages (estimated)

$2.99

Material supplied by the author in exchange for my objective review.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2015, 2018