Despite the fact that I generally do not like books that take place in the Old West, The Desperado still managed to pull me in from the first page, and hold my attention until the end. I read the book in just two sittings, and I am not a fast reader.

I instantly liked the character Willow. She is the heroine of the story. The main female character in romances is always referred to as the heroine, even if she is weak and unheroic. Willow is a heroine in the truest sense of the word. She knows how to fend for herself, and can save the day without the aid of a male. I love stories where females can kick major butt, and this is one of them.

Another thing that made this book so good were the intricate details that the author included throughout the book about the characters and the settings. Some of these details are so small that you might not even notice them, but if you do notice them, you will find that the author gives them a very nice payoff by the end. I do not want to mention specifics, since it will give too much of the plot away, but it is little details such as these that makes the reader realize how much thought Ms. Rosemoor put in to this book before she wrote it.

I have read romance novels which seem like they were written in a few days, and have recycled their plots from other books. Not surprisingly, those books lack depth and originality. The Desperado is not like that. It works on more than one level, because of the intricate details, but also because of the depth of its characters. In most romance novels, the hero and the heroine are the only 3-dimensional characters, and the other characters in the book are stereotypes and/or flat. It also seems as if you are not supposed to care that much about the secondary characters, and should be focusing your attention on the plight of the hero and heroine. With this book, that is not so. I found myself caring about some of the secondary characters, and wanting to know more about them. For example, Willow's sister Tansy.

Tansy is the character who kick starts the plot. She runs away from home, and travels back in time to the Old West. She goes to the Old West since she is obsessed with a bounty hunter named Wolf Madrid who lived back then. Willow follows her to the past, since she is worried about the girl's welfare, and also because she wants to bring her back to the future. Tansy and Wolf are both well developed throughout the book, though not as much as Willow and the hero Ryder. By the end, I was itching to know more about Tansy and Wolf. They are interesting, original characters, who deserve a story of their own. So, if you are reading this Ms. Rosemoor, please write a sequel about them! I bet I'm not the only reader who is dying to know more about those characters.

Ms. Rosemoor also does an amazing job with describing her settings. She must have done a lot of research for this book. It almost seems as if she herself traveled back in time to New Mexico during the 1880's, and is telling the reader about what she saw there. Her vast knowledge of New Mexico's culture, in both the past and present, makes a plot which could never happen in real life seem believable.

The reason why I give this book 4 1/2 stars instead of 5 is because there were certain things about the Ryder-Willow relationship that I did not like, especially how it ended. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that I did not like Ryder, and thought he was unworthy of Willow's love. Ryder did not win me over like a romance hero is supposed to. The romance reader is supposed to admire the heroine, and is supposed to desire the hero, or at least understand why the heroine desires the hero. Ryder looks like a young Robert Redford (which makes him sound attractive, at least to me) and he tries his best to protect Willow from danger (even though in most cases she is fully capable of protecting herself), but besides that, I felt as if he didn't have much to offer her. We learn a lot about his past, and we get an idea of what kind of man he is, but besides that, his personality kind of falls flat. I felt as if Wolf Madrid was a far more interesting male character than Ryder was, which is why I will stress again, that Ms. Rosemoor should really write a book about him and Tansy!

Another reason why I would like to see a sequel, is because I became quite attached to the characters, and was sad to see the book end. I also have not found another romance book as good as this one. Out of the Timetwist books I have read so far, it is the best. I feel that if Ms. Rosemoor wrote a sequel, it could be just as good, or maybe even better! Especially since Wolf is a much more intriguing character than Ryder was, and would make a great hero.