Book Review: A Woman Called Sage by DiAnn Mills

About the book:

They took away everything she loved...now, she’s out for revenge.

Sage Morrow had it all: life on a beautiful Colorado ranch, a husband who adored her, and a baby on the way. Until five ruthless gunmen rode up to their ranch and changed her life forever.

Now Sage is a bounty hunter bent on retribution. Accompanied only by her majestic hawk, she travels throughout the Rocky Mountains in search of injustice, determined to stamp it out wherever it’s found. The stakes are raised when two young boys are kidnapped and Sage is forced to work with Marshall Parker Timmons to rescue them. But Sage may ultimately get more than she bargained for.

In this exciting historical romance set in the late 1800s, murder, intrigue, kidnapping, and questions of faith will keep you in suspense until the final pages.

My thoughts:

Ok, seriously, who wouldn't want to read a book about a female bounty hunter? What a unique idea for story, and definitely a profession that would have been frowned upon in the late 1800's. This was my first experience reading one of DiAnn Mills's books, and I have mixed feelings about it.

The beginning....fabulous! I was hooked from the very first page because that's where the action starts. In a matter of minutes, Sage loses her husband and her unborn child thanks to a band of outlaws that are convinced that Sage's husband has something that belongs to them. Unfortunately for the outlaws, they didn't successfully send Sage to an early death, and now, she's out for revenge. She then spends a few years with her Ute ancestors, and after her time there, she becomes a bounty hunter determined to find the men responsible for the deaths of her husband and son.

Sage manages to catch up with Aiden McCaw, one of the outlaws, and brings him into the nearest town to turn him over to the marshall, Parker Timmons, and collect the bounty money. Aiden doesn't last long in jail thanks to his brothers riding into town to bust him out. They beat Parker to a pulp, and leave him unconscious in the jail. His brothers also manage to kidnap two of Parker's nephews. When Sage discovers all of this, she and Parker ride their horses into the mountains to rescue the boys.

**SPOILER ALERT**

For a book to be named after a main character, Sage's role in the story didn't seem to be a very large one after the first third of the book. True, her rescue of Parkers' nephews was very brave, but after that, she spends almost the rest of the story as an invalid recovering from a gunshot wound. My initial desire to read the book was based mostly on the title and the front cover, and after seeing Sage's character basically take a backseat for almost the rest of the story, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.

Remember the injuries that Parker got at the jail break? Well, when he and Sage return to town after rescuing the boys, it's like they disappear. They're not mentioned again until somewhere at the end of the book, and even there, it's in retrospect. I don't know if the author was trying to focus on what awaited them when they got back to town or what, but this part of the story just did not seem complete.

In short (because this has been a rather long-winded review), the beginning was great, the middle was less than great, and the end seemed a little too tidy. I think if Sage had not spent the majority of the book confined to a bed, and if the action from the beginning had continued all the way through, this would've been a 5-star book for me. As is, I'd give it 3 stars. Hopefully, someone else will enjoy it in its entirety.

3 Stars

**Many thanks to Zondervan and CFBA for providing a copy to review.

**Click here to purchase a copy of A Woman Called Sage.