Publisher's Weekly
Marsh Canton is the meanest gunslinger in the West until he decides to settle in San Francisco in 1879 and run the Glory Hole, a saloon he won as settlement of a gambling debt. Catalina (Cat) Hilliard owns the saloon across the street, the Silver Lady, and has run all of the Glory Hole's previous owners out of town with the help of loyal personal connections, including police captain Delaney, and her shrewd business tactics. With their fierce and highly publicized competition for customers as a backdrop, Cat and Marsh struggle to overcome their tainted pasts (she was a prostitute, he is gentry turned gunfighter in the wake of the Civil War) and make honorable lives for themselves and their devoted employees in post-Gold Rush California. Eventually a romance whose intensity is matched only by that of their feud ignites, forcing Cat and Marsh to learn to trust one another and to face their pasts. Potter's ( Renegade ) smart dialogue and constant action keep the narrative moving at a rapid pace, and the tensions she establishes between the characters make potentially trite moments work.