The Outcasts by Kathleen Kent

It's the Wild West with a prostitute and an inexperienced lawman running loose.

Lucinda Carter and Nate Cannon will take you on a ride through the 1870's as they try to make a new life for themselves.  They both wanted to start over, but they both ended up doing the same thing they always did.

Lucinda went from being a prostitute to being a teacher, and Nate is trying his hand at being a lawman to make a better life for his family.

Lucinda isn't an upstanding character, but her profession made her that way.  She stole money from her landlady who is also the owner of the brothel she escaped from.  Lucinda is only interested in herself and finding something that a friend told her was in the town she moved to.  Lucinda was difficult to like simply because you knew she wasn't on the up and up.

Nate is a good man trying to fit in even though he is a greenhorn.  I liked him because of his innocence and loyalty.

The book took a while for me to get interested because I wasn't sure where it was heading and how these two characters and their stories were connected.  Each chapter went back and forth between the two characters.  When you find out the connection between the two main characters, you will be surprised.

THE OUTCASTS became a bit better as you followed Lucinda around the classroom and back to her old ways and as you followed Nate around the countryside, but it still wasn't a wow.  It actually wasn’t a favorite read.

I do have to say, though, that the writing is very descriptive allowing you to clearly see the scenes and activities of both characters.

The cover definitely pulled me in, and I was hoping for a better-connected story, but I wasn't "dying" to get back to the book .

Give it a try, though, if you like the Wild West.  I am rating THE OUTCASTS 3/5.

This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher at a Hachette Book Event in New York City in return for an honest review.