Hold the World Together by Pepper Espinoza

71YR+wxwp4L._SL1500_Title: Hold the World Together

Series: Vive La Différence AmberPax™ Collection.

Author: Pepper Espinoza

Genre: Gay / Historical / The Old West

Length: Extended Novella (109 pages)

ISBN: 978-1-61124-586-8

Publisher: Amber Allure, Amber Quill Press (April 20th, 2014)

Heat Level: Low

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥ 5 Hearts

Reviewer: Cat

Blurb: Harvard graduate Alfred Chan jumps at the chance to teach languages at the new University of California, eager to leave his life behind even if it means a dangerous cross-country journey. He knows there are bandits in the western mountains, but he never expects the most infamous of those bandits to stop his wagon train and steal him away into the night.

Sam and Shane Lyons are wanted for robbing stagecoaches and wagon trains across the western territories, and they don’t just take money. Sometimes, they kidnap educated men. A mysterious Chinese scroll holds the promise of a better life for the two brothers, if only they can find somebody able to read the strange marks on the page. They whisk Alfred to their hideout high in the ragged cliffs of the Uinta Mountains, and there, during a brutal winter, they warn him that his life will end if he fails to deliver a full translation.

Alfred knows he should fear for his life, but somehow, when he’s with Sam, he’s not afraid of anything…

Purchase Link: http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/1951-Hold-The-World-Together.aspx

Review: Alfred is on his way to California for a teaching job from Boston when a pair of notorious robbers takes him from the train. The Lyons brothers have a bad reputation of murdering and robbery. He finds there is a third member of the group also and a mysterious scroll written in Chinese that they want deciphered.

They are holed up in a hidden abandoned train car. Here are more dangers to survive the winter than the men holding him captive. Alfred never thought he would want to give up his warm cozy life with servants and everything his heart desires but something about Sam Lyons makes him feel things he never knew existed.

This is an absolutely beautiful story set in the old west about roughing winters, living on the run, and discovering love. The story hooked me from the beginning. There are many twists and turns and I fell in love with not only Alfred but also Sam, Mike and Shane.
If you old-time westerns, gunfighters, robbers, hidden secrets, historical settings and an all-over beautiful store this is definitely for you.