June on the Range 2026: Hard Rustler!

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Hello book. Well, it's June the 1st, so it's finally here. One of book's most beloved events, June on the Range, created by Michael Kvon, of course, in which we read westerns for the month of June. I am one of the co-hosts, although apparently all all six of the people I have seen talk about June on the range don't know that fact, but nevertheless, I am one of the co-hosts. Uh, and the this is a Michael Kvon event. So, it is festoned left, right, and center with ironclad rules. No, actually, not at all. If you want, you could read westerns by two of the foundational writers of the genre, Louis Moore and Zayn Gray, but any western will do for the month of June, or as many westerns as you can do. A number of people that I have that I have been following uh seem intent on overdosing on westerns for the month of June, which is terrific. most western novels when they were the absolute pinnacle of the publishing industry when you simply could not go wrong. You could print money by getting a reliable western writer, someone who could give you a manuscript every month.

[00:01:03]Uh most of those books are 150 pages soaking wet with rocks in their pockets.

[00:01:09]You could easily read them in one sitting. Uh and no offense to June on the Range, but most of those westerns aren't exactly intellectually taxing. So, it's not just the page count that you could handle in an hour. Uh, and I had intended on that.

[00:01:25]I, if you've been watching this channel, you know that just recently I went to the Brattle and found a little stack of mass market paperback westerns. That's kind of the best way to read westerns is in those old molding mass market paperbacks that aren't really going to live much longer.

[00:01:41]They were churned out on cheap pulp paper as fast as the presses could run them back when westerners were the most popular kind of reading that existed aside from romances.

[00:01:52]Uh, and they aren't anymore. They aren't any for a whole bunch of reasons. They aren't anymore. Uh, and as as a result, those old paperbacks are just moldering away in yard sales and used bookstores and whatnot and deserve one last roundup. Right? If if you find a ratty old mass market paperback, maybe with wonderful originally commissioned artwork, there was a market for that. Uh some of the artwork on some of the mass markets that I see is just lovely. And I it's almost never credited. I don't know if originals exist anywhere. I have no idea. Uh this I don't know if there's ever been a book about the art of the mass market western. I would love that.

[00:02:33]If the art of the paperback western, that would be terrific. But I don't if there has been a book, I've never seen anything like it. And I had planned on picking one of those mass market westerns that I got the other day or the stack that I already have. But then I I was watching I believe Sarah reading category romance. It would stand a it would stand a reason that it was her.

[00:02:53]She was talking about her pile of possibilities, her TBR for June on the Range and mentioned Harley Quinn.

[00:03:00]It's pretty tough to find a Sarah video in which she doesn't mention Harley Quinn. she is our category queen. Uh and she rightly points out that Harlequin has been publishing westerns forever and ever uh in their romance line in a couple of different ways. Uh either in Harlequin historicals where you will get an actual western which is they're more or less located chronologically between the ending of the American Civil War in 1865 and the the completion of easy commercefriendly transcontinental railroads. So, the completion of manifest destiny, so-called manifest destiny, and the more or less complete penning up and and uh subjugation of the Plains Indians or indigenous indigenous peoples anywhere in from the the Canadian border to the middle of Mexico. Those those broader cultural things make it a little bit harder to pin down the end of a traditional western, but you know it when you see it. It's it's unlikely that you're going to have a western set in the 1920s.

[00:04:08]You can do it, but it's unlikely. And it won't be the same kind of western.

[00:04:12]You'll have you'll have telephones, you'll have automobiles, you'll have uh carefully policed Indian reservations that that whereas in a in a typical western the frontier at least in one direction is open and it is populated by free roaming warrior peoples that adds a background tension to all the stuff that happens in the saloon or in the thorough affair or whatnot. uh Harley Quinn historicals once upon a time they also thrived and they gave you at least one western a month. Uh and then there's other Harley Quinn imprints that give you westerns that are more contemporary and uh I was planning on skipping Harley Quinn completely for the first week of June on the range and just reading some of those paperback westerns. and Sarah had to go and mention Harlequin. Uh, and so I went to I read uh it turns out the first book that I read for June on the Range was a contemporary western. It's got cars, it's got phones, it's got electricity, it's got everything. It's by a terrific author, a romance author that never lets me down, BJ Daniels, and it's called Hard Rustler from the Harlequin Intrigue line.

[00:05:26]Uh, and it stars a supermodel who whose name is Annabelle, who has fallen on hard times. She left the little town of White Horse, Montana to make it big in the big city in New York as a supermodel and graced the covers of magazines and had a contramp.

[00:05:47]She had a problem in New York. Uh, money isn't as easy as it once was. her high-flying lifestyle is not is seriously compromised by maxed out credit cards. When she gets news that shakes up even that shaken up world, she learns that her grandmother, Granny Franny, her grandmother Francesca, uh has not only died, she knew that already, but she's also left the house in White Horse, a nice big ornate house to Annabelle alone. Annabelle's two sisters got be, but they did not get a share in the house.

[00:06:27]And uh at the beginning of the book, Annabelle, she wants to sell the house.

[00:06:34]She doesn't want anything. She doesn't certainly doesn't want to put down roots in White Horse. Uh but she decides not to have the local town realtor, a high school, an old high school friend, an old high school friend of hers, do the sale and handle the paperwork. She wants to do it herself.

[00:06:50]She there's it's a little bit unclear.

[00:06:53]It seems like there's a sentimental reason involved that you know maybe she wants to just handle it on her own. She flies into Billings. Billings is hours away from White Horse. She decides to drive and almost runs out of gas. It's as a kind of a kind of a heavy-handed metaphor for the state of her life. She is almost within sight of White Horse when she is her car is running on fumes and almost out of gas. And there is a cowboy uh with his van on the side of the road and he is dirty and disheveled and bearded and disreputable looking, but he is willing to give her some gas enough to get her into town. Uh and she drives off without realizing that he is someone that she knows. He is he is one of the reasons why she left White Horse. His name is Dawson and he is a local cowboy and rancher.

[00:07:46]And right out of high school when she decided to leave White Horse, they were a heavy item together. They were in love.

[00:07:53]But in she wanted to chase her dream to the big city and he did not want to go with her. He is going to stay in Montana. He wanted to make his ranch thrive and he in the 15 years in between. So we're dealing with people on the border of 30. He did make his ranch thrive. Uh but and he is he's tall and strapping and thin-waisted and broad- shouldered and gorgeous, but he has just been hunting for two weeks in a hunting camp. So, he is dirty and smelly and disheveled and bearded and she doesn't recognize him. She borrows gas. She takes gas from him, but she doesn't recognize him and drives off. Uh he has been smarting from their party this whole time. It's not like it's not like you know this is a romance novel so there's no such thing as healthy emotional relationships at all. Instead he has been pining for her so much that he has not you know done the normal human thing which is to pine for her for a few months and then marry and start a family with someone else that he also loves. Nope. No. In romance novels you only get to love one person. So So he is exactly the same as when she left him.

[00:09:04]Uh, and she the mere sight of her still drives him crazy. Uh, and we learn later on when she realizes that it's him, we learn that the same is true for her as well. They are still erotically anyway passionately in love with each other.

[00:09:19]But in the meantime, she drives into town and goes to her grandmother's house. And the real her realtor friendmy, the old this old uh caddyy quasi rival from high school is there.

[00:09:33]For some odd reason, uh, BJ Daniels capitalizes the word realtor all throughout this book.

[00:09:39]She doesn't capitalize rancher or plumber, airline pilot, or anything like that. She just capitalizes the the the word realtor. It's incorrect, but she she insists on it. And the realtor lets her into her grandmother's home. Big stately home, multiple multiple rooms, but they're full of junk. It turns out Granny Franny was a hoarder. There are pathways along the the floor from one room to another, but there are piles of junk in every room. And um when they get to a back room of the house, they find that a window is open uh and that stuff has been ransacked.

[00:10:20]It's not just one one room in particular is not just the the mess of a hoarder.

[00:10:25]It's clearly that someone has broken in and thrown things around looking for something.

[00:10:31]Uh, and you know, as reading along here, I was confused that realtor kept being capitalized. Then then I got to that scene and thought, "Okay, you've just told me that this is Montana the day before Thanksgiving." She gets to to town the day before Thanksgiving.

[00:10:47]So, if a window were open, the house would be freezing cold. It would be the first thing you notice. You wouldn't have to go and find the window. It would be It would be the first thing you noticed. Instead, the temperature inside the house is never mentioned. We're told that it's cold outside, but Annabelle intends to spend to stay as long as she's in White Horse getting the house ready for sale. She intends to live in the house. There's no mention made of her fixing that window or heating or anything like that. We're told that the bills on the house have been paid. Anyway, uh while they are looking at all her and her friendmy are looking at all of this junk, they notice uh the realtor has pulled the plans for the house, the the original city issued plans for the house. Of course, the realtor wouldn't do that, right? But that you need we need the plot to get a moving and and oh, don't talk to me about get a moving. Every once in a while, BJ Daniels remembers that she's writing a kind of western and drops the G off a few written words. None of these characters talk like that. It's just occasionally she wants it to sound that way. Those they're in the narrative that way. Just But anyway, uh because this realtor with a capital R has pulled the plans for the house, she notices that there is an al cove where there shouldn't be in one of the rooms and wonders what's going on. And Annabelle, you know, grew up in this house. Her grandmother essentially raised her, but and she but she's a little unclear on whether or not there ever was an al cove there or not. It it doesn't so much matter to her. What matters to her is finding people to clear out the house. It's a huge job.

[00:12:22]She tries to do it herself, but it's a huge job. It's going to delay how long she is in White Horse.

[00:12:30]Uh and people right away, it's a small town. people right away start noticing that she's there, including Dawson's mother, who invites her to Thanksgiving dinner the next day.

[00:12:42]She's there right on the the, you know, on the border of Thanksgiving, uh, with no if, or buts. And, uh, Annabelle has learned that Dawson is off hunting and assumes, okay, well, be a little awkward being in that house again, but at least I won't have to deal with him. She doesn't know that he's back because she didn't recognize him on the highway.

[00:13:00]Uh but there's another bit of recognizing going on because there is another character.

[00:13:05]There is a character in a nursing home.

[00:13:08]Uh and uh his name is Bernie McDougall and he is an oldstyle gangster, but he's had he's old. He's had lots of ill health and he is in a nursing home apparently harmless. But he has been watching he's been watching the newspapers all over the country. Of course, this wouldn't be possible, but you got to suspend your disbelief in a romance novel. He's been watching the newspapers all over the country for women of a certain age because once upon a time, years and years ago, decades ago, he had a fling with a beautiful young woman in New York who wouldn't tell him her real name. So, he called her baby doll. His baby doll. She liked that. And they had a wonderful time together until they didn't. They had a wonderful time together until she disappeared with the proceeds from a gigantic heist that he did. All of his confederates went to jail, but no one could pin anything on him. But that didn't make him happy because he didn't have his proceeds. He didn't have the loot from the heist. And he knew who did. Baby doll had it. But where is she? He waited all this time waiting for some kind of hint in some newspaper, mainly probably an obituary, until finally he sees one in the local paper for White Horse.

[00:14:26]He sees uh Franchesca's obituary with a picture of a little old lady, but he knows he can he can see right away that this is uh his baby doll. So he calls his nephew Rob, a young man who has been sent on wild goose chases before looking for women who might end up being baby doll. None of them were. They were all dead ends where where Bernie was just wrong. Uh but this time he's sure. So he tells Rob, "Go to White Horse and secure the loot." Apparently, there is a relative, this woman named Annabelle, who when I talked to the realtor in town, she said Annabelle's name as if I was supposed to know it. Yeah, because Annabelle is famous, but not to, you know, a retired mobster. He tells his nephew, "Go there." And if she's cleaning out the house, she might throw out what I want. So, it's unlikely, but I don't want her to know about it or have her hands on it at all. I don't want anybody to have her hands on it but me.

[00:15:25]I can't go myself because the feds are watching me. And Bernie makes a point here as well. Well, of course, he couldn't go anyway. He's an invalid. And why the friends aren't watching his nephew, who's already gone on goose chases like this before. The the feds would have a clear idea of what Rob is looking for. He's not going to go to New Orleans or Maine or wherever to find an old lady. And it's implied kill them without the feds noticing.

[00:15:51]Uh but Bernie makes it clear that he's not the only one looking for this. There are a whole bunch of state and local law enforcement and also the curator of museum who wants the jewels back that were part of the loot. A whole bunch of people could be converging on White Horse. Rob will just be one of them. Of course, Annabelle and by extension Dawson don't know any of this. They all they're concerned with is that he shows up at that Thanksgiving dinner and they immediately start feeling feelings for each other again. But they're also curious about that al cove in the house.

[00:16:27]Uh, and eventually they excavate it. It turns out that it is a tunnel. It is the entrance to a tunnel, a secret escape route. And there's a dead body in that tunnel.

[00:16:42]Uh, and it's not it's not Granny Franny's husband. It's not not a grandfather. It's instead the body of an old criminal associate of Bernie.

[00:16:54]So certainly guilty. This is definitely baby doll. This is not a case of mistaken identity at all. Uh and those two plot lines wind together through this book where you are wondering uh what kind of danger is going to come here. I mean Rob we again we are it is implied that Rob kills these old women when they turn out not to be the people that he's looking for so much more he's going to kill the one who does turn out to be what he's going to kill anyone associated with this house in order to extract the loot uh especially if he seems to be too late. So on the one hand you've got that thriller line which is why this is a Harley intrigue because in Harlequin intrigues you've got a definite second plot. The romance is not the only plot and it's a it's a balancing act. And on the other thing on the the other plot of course is the standard thing. You you open a romance novel like this with these two people who are both gorgeous. One of actually a supermodel uh who broke up under horrible circumstances 15 years ago. You know what's going to happen in the novel. It's not like they're going to say, "Well, we tried. They're going to get back together." Uh I don't understand some of the things in this book. Uh, I don't, like I said, I don't understand that business about the window being open. The house would be freezing cold in Montana at Thanksgiving. The house would be freezing cold. There's no mention of it.

[00:18:15]I don't understand why realtor is capitalized all throughout here. I also don't understand the title of the book.

[00:18:21]Dawson is not a rustler. There are no rustlers in this book. Dawson at no point in the book even holds a weapon like the one that we're that we see on the cover. I assume that's Dawson. And so when when you could have named this anything else that you could have called it baby doll.

[00:18:39]Uh I realize part of that is just packaging just the packaging of of Harley Quinn intrigue but that it was kind of weird. I'm I have a thing for book titles. I don't like them to be just outright bad and hard rustler. Not only is Dawson not a rustler, he's not that good a rancher. I mean, at one point in the book, a neighbor of his walks up to his door, wraps on the door, and when Dawson opens the door, the neighbor says, "You got a gigantic patch of fence in your back 40 that's open, and your cattle can just wander out onto the interstate." And Dawson had no idea.

[00:19:10]From what I gather in the book, he seems to be running this ranch on his own, which he certainly couldn't do, especially if we're told, as we're told, he's made a success of it. He would need help. He doesn't seem to have any. He has brothers, I'm sure, all of whom BJ Daniels gave their own romance novels.

[00:19:24]Uh, but you know, the the plot lines wind together to the conclusion. And one of the things I was thinking here, I was wondering, of course, Sarah would know all the details of how these things are made. Probably she's best friends with BJ Daniels, but but I I I often wonder what kind of timet BJ Daniels had for this sort of a thing. Cuz all I was thinking was if you put this thing back on the skillet and cooked it just a little bit longer, what a book you could have had. as opposed to this which is it's fairly simple. The the plot is really good. The plot as I've described it is really good. If you were to darken things up and intensify things instead of taking the easy the easy corners that romance novels, let's be honest, are often infamous for taking.

[00:20:17]If you had if you had done more with this, it could have been a much more gripping book. There's even a big reveal at the end involving Bernie that could have been a lot more. I mean, it's it's good the way it is. No, BJ Daniels never writes a bad book, but I kept thinking, what if you know what? Did you have six weeks to write this? Well, that was my thought is did you have six weeks to write this? So, you know, cuz I'm not I'm not, you know, condescending here at all. BJ Daniels is a hell of a storyteller. I'm sure that if I can spot what this thing could have been with a little more rumination, she could spot it. But maybe she just didn't have the time. I don't know. I don't know. Uh but uh either way, Dawson is called a cowboy all throughout this thing. So I thought maybe it's a kind of soft entry into June on the Range. He's not much of a cowboy. Not really. So So I I don't know how many contemporary westerns I will I will do for June on the Range, but the you know, the month is young. and we're all going to be reading up a storm for June on the Range. So, you never know.

[00:21:22]Uh I will I will try something historical next time though tonight. Uh and I will uh I'll be back. I I'm planning on overdosing books on June on the Range myself. I feel like I should be doing more.

[00:21:37]If only there was some extravagant way that I could celebrate June on the Range.

[00:21:43]I'm drawing a blank. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you too.