Oh, James.

You and I have been have been exchanging glances for quite some time now. And you’ve been trying to get my attention through my friends. After your date with Jen, she wondered where you’d been all her life. Diane said you were “amazing.” After your first time with Cathrine she said, “Hot damn… I think I’m in love.” I was intrigued.

We were still beating around the bush with each other, though, until you invited yourself into my home (via a winning entry in a GoodReads Giveaway). Bold move, Mr. Burke. You made it very clear you wanted my attention. Still, I like to play a little hard-to-get, and I let you sweat it out for a bit on the shelf until the time was right.

Maybe it was nerves, or too much anticipation, or that I’m still harboring a crush for
[a:Anthony Marra|5989255|Anthony Marra|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1396573234p2/5989255.jpg], but I didn’t experience fireworks on our first date. It could be that you took me to a place I don’t really enjoy (Mexico and Texas in the early 1900’s) and kept talking about the Holy Grail long after I lost interest.

Still, there’s something about your style I like, and you do have a way with women (you know we’re as tough as or tougher than men, and we don’t want to read about shrinking violets). I also *love* your tenacity. My favorite part of our time together is learning that your novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie was rejected 111 times over a period of 9 years, and then, upon its publication, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. I made sure to show that story to my daughters.

I gave you my number, and will definitely go on a second date. In fact, I’m already looking forward to [b:The Jealous Kind: A Novel|29326413|The Jealous Kind A Novel (A Holland Family Novel)|James Lee Burke|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1456339118s/29326413.jpg|47456113].

3.5 stars

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and GoodReads for providing this book as part of a giveaway.
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Ok, I'm really done with James Lee Burke this time. His writing is getting more florid and less interesting over time. The "heroes" get more evil and depressing over time, the neutral characters seem to only exist to support the heroes, and the villains are still the villains. And you can tell the villain from the hero as soon as you read "phallus". ( )

Burke hasn't lost his touch. I stayed up until 3 am reading this book. ( )

The sun had just crested on the horizon like a misplaced planet, swollen and molten and red, lighting a landscape that seemed sculpted out of clay and soft stone and marked by the fossilized tracks of animals with no names, when a tall barefoot man wearing little more than rags dropped his horse's reins and eased himself off the horse's back and worked his way down an embankment into a riverbed chained with pools of water that glimmered as brightly as blood in the sunrise.

This is the second James Lee Burke novel I have finished this year. I believe I read one of his books years ago, but had lost track of what he was doing. I’m glad to have rediscovered his work.
House of. the rising sun was a rock song of the 60s. I don’t know if I realized at the time that it was about a famous New Orleans brothel. Actually the House of the Rising sun features only peripherally in the book.
It is the story of a Texas ranger and his two women. One he is married to, the other who is the mother of his child. It is a turn of the century (19th to 20th) story of the Texas west and Mexico’s rrevolutions at the time.
The major issue’s hack faces are self control and the search for his son. He became separated from his son because of the struggle betwee his two women.
The book is well written, the characters real seeming although their adventures extradinorary. ( )