The Walters Brothers by qhml1

Review by Nulaak83   [other reviews by Nulaak83]

Reviewed:

An excellent prequel to the Split Tails Ranch story that flips to Brad narrating rather than sticking with Zeke who was the narrator for Split Tails. Like Split Tails the plot is adjacent to a lot of normal Western themes but still original enough to keep the reader engaged. The background information provided provides new insights into the characters and there's only really one minor discrepancy and even that isn't major with it only being a different percentage listed from the mine received by the brothers.

The editing done on this story is a big step up from Split Tails and there are very few typos and grammatical errors in this version. The story is appealing as a stand alone and combined with Split Tails makes for a great Western read that with some proofreading would be worth being published for sale.

Review by Jim S   [other reviews by Jim S]

Reviewed: - (Review Updated: )

qhml1 consistently produces really good stories here at SOL. The chronological sequel to this one, Split Tail Ranch (STR) which appeared first, was one of them. It was slightly better than this one but only by a hair.

STR was set in the Old West and was about two brothers acquiring a cattle ranch in Colorado, this after striking it rich with a gold mine. This story is about how they acquired the gold mine.

Like most all of his stories, the author has this one stepping quickly. Sometimes this results in having fewer details than needed (at least to me) or casting a character less fully than he/she probably should be but it's hard for me to tell if I'm just upset that the story isn't longer. In any case, I hated to see this one end. It's good. Really good.

If you come to this story without having read the sequel on which it is based, you might find the characters not fleshed out as colorfully as they are in STR. So I'd suggest, if you haven't done so already, to read that one first which really isn't an onerous requirement given that story's quality. But you just about have to in order to fully appreciate both main protagonists. That's about the only negative thing I can see about this one.

As I said, the story's pace is quick. And it's brutal at times but then so were the times and setting so it fits. The violence isn't gratuitous. Neither are the erotic scenes but they're minimal as the description says. Technically, it's pretty tight; only some misspellings and missed words. Certainly not enough to take away from the enjoyment of the read. Two thumbs up as my ratings show.