From Booklist
Raised in privilege, Viola is disinherited and ostracized when she is forced to marry a man far beneath her. Now a widow, Viola ekes out a living by taking in washing in a western mining town. On one of her rounds returning clean clothes to the local house of ill repute, she overhears the girls talking about the skills of William Donovan, a handsome Irishman well on his way to making a fortune. Stalked by a crazy suitor, and bereft after her small stash of money is stolen, Viola feels she has no choice but to sell her body. Instead of joining the local working girls, however, she approaches Donovan and asks to be his mistress. He is surprised but quickly takes her up on her offer, and what follows is a very interesting story related in prose so steamy that it fogs one's reading glasses as Donovan, a student of the sensual arts, teaches Viola everything he knows, and then some. Maria Hatton
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FROM THE PUBLISHER

He was her chance for survival...

Born to wealth and privilege but now widowed and betrayed on the unforgiving Arizona frontier, Viola Ross finds herself forced to choose between starvation and marriage to her husband's murderer. Instead she takes a scandalous risk: to turn her back on polite society and become the mistress of sensual William Donovan. Donovan, a wagonmaster and panther of a man, is fully capable of defending her with his bullwhip and Bowie knives. She has no idea what else he can do with those big, callused hands￯﾿ﾽbut she's going to find out...

She was a dream who could destroy him...

Donovan is stunned by Viola's offer since he's always seen her as a fairy princess far beyond the reach of any self- made Irish immigrant. Women like her might enjoy an affair with a man like him￯﾿ﾽand he's more than proven himself in that capacity￯﾿ﾽbut they always reject his offers of marriage. But how will Viola react when she discovers the darkness of his erotic hungers? And once he's sampled her shy beauty, can he bear to let her go?

While the killer marshals his forces ...