Villain Demands His Own Love Story with Adrienne deWolfe of Devil in Texas + #Giveaway

The Devil in Texas Rides Again:
Villain Demands His Own Love Story
By National Bestselling Author Adrienne deWolfe


WANTED: The “Devil in Texas,” also known as “The Rebel Rutter;” “Eros in Spurs,” and “Lucifire” (because he’s a devil with a gun) . . .

William Cassidy wasn’t supposed to be hero material.  He was a gunslinger, wanted by every lawman in the West.  When I first envisioned my heroine, a pistol-packing Pinkerton with fiery hair and an even hotter temper, I planned to make “Coyote Cass” the villain of her story.  But Cass wasn’t happy with my plot to bury him at Boot Hill.

“Aw, c’mon, Wolfie,” he kept whispering in my ear, “I’m not so bad.  I’m funny!  How many villains do you know, who ride get-away horses named Jelli and Pancake?  And what about that time I poured moonshine into my sweetheart’s pie, so she could win the county bake-off?  I’m adorable!  Give me a book and a woman of my own!”

The next thing I knew, I was doing something crazy:  rewriting the ebook version of a previously published paperback, so I could star Cass and Sadie in their own series of Western Whodunits, Lady Law & The Gunslinger.  In Book 1, Devil in Texas, Cass is trying to redeem his wild ways by working as the bodyguard of a senator. He doesn’t realize that Sadie – his long-lost love -- has been sent by the Pinkertons to pin a murder charge on his scumbag boss.

Turning a shady character into a hero is great fun, but the proposition can be risky. If an antagonist is too dark in the previous story, readers will be horrified. Fortunately, I’ve had success walking this tightrope with another character, Dr. Michael Jones, who transitioned from antagonist to award-winning hero in my Velvet Lies series.

So how did I work this magic with Cass in Devil in Texas?

First (and this is extremely important,) Cass honors and protects women. In the Romance genre, you cannot redeem a Bad Boy if he committed a heinous act against a woman, a child, or an endearing animal.  Readers will always hate that character.

Next, I made Cass appeal to the reader’s heart.  I revealed that he was an impetuous young hothead, who made a serious mistake. Cass’s itchy trigger finger cost him the woman he loved and his dream of becoming a Ranger.  In Devil in Texas, we watch the remorseful Cass mentor an orphaned thief, trying to convince the boy to stay on the straight-and-narrow.

But the best way to redeem a shady character is to reveal new information through a sympathetic viewpoint. Sadie tells us that Cass grew up so poor, he had to steal rags from scarecrows to stay warm.  Sadie also reveals that 12-year-old Cass watched his last surviving kin get gunned down, and the law didn’t lift a finger to punish the killer.

Redeeming a Bad Boy means making that character grow, but not so much that you’ve reinvented Dudley Do-Right. In Devil in Texas, Cass remains proud that he once accepted a bet to seduce a virgin on her wedding day -- and won.  He’s even prouder that Dodge City’s most notorious madam dubbed him the “Rebel Rutter.”

Needless to say, Cass is much too canny to be tamed by the average wedding-bell chaser. That’s why I wrote Sadie as a female action hero, who jumps out of a burning building and wades into a hail of gunfire to rescue a kidnapped child.  But to make our intrepid Lady Pinkerton really interesting, I show Cass struggling with his suspicion that she betrayed him four years ago to the Rangers. The sparks really fly when the star-crossed lovers reunite, waging their battle of wits and wiles from Galveston’s seamy red-light district, to the glittering health resorts of the “Saratoga of the South.”

The prequel to Devil in Texas is the novella, Shady Lady, published in the #1 bestselling Historical Western Romance anthology, Pistols & Petticoats.



Devil in Texas 
(Lady Law & the Gunslinger #1)
by Adrienne deWolfe
Paperback, 314 pages
Published May 17th 2016 by Epublishing Works!
ISBN 1614178399

Pinkerton Agent Sadie Michelson poses as a casino singer to investigate a Texas Senator. Before she can cozy up to her quarry, she must get past his bodyguard, William Cassidy, her long-lost lover.

An outlaw seeking redemption, Cass was lured to Texas by the promise of a Ranger badge. But he hasn't forgotten the sassy siren, who toyed with his heart. When Sadie proposes a truce, Cass suspects she's hiding something.

With assassins dogging their heels, Cass and Sadie uncover a murder conspiracy in the senate. To stay alive, they must do the one thing they're dead set against: trust each other. 

AMAZON | B&N

Sneak Peek:

Lampasas, Texas

October 1883

 "I don't suppose you paid to enter this bathhouse after hours," Sadie accused.

"Why rent a pool when you own a lock pick?" Cass quipped.

"Is that a confession, hooligan?"

"Are you going to arrest me?" he countered hopefully.

"Not if you're going to like it."

"Then I confess. I hate to swim. Especially when I'm butt-naked and all alone."

Now he was knifing through the water, heading on a collision course with her. She glimpsed taut buttocks, gleaming like snow-capped hillocks in the lunar light. She was almost sorry when the show ended. He surfaced before her, a cascade of liquid emerald rolling off moon-chiseled shoulders and an abdomen that might have been cut from white granite. A little growl of admiration rumbled in her throat.

"Where's my pendant, felon?" she rallied.

"Reckon you'll have to search me for it, detective."

His head lowered, and his tongue slid along her bottom lip.

That's when she remembered, to her utter mortification, she was still wearing the whiskers from her disguise.

But Cass, being Cass, was thoroughly amused by the sheer wrongness of kissing a bearded woman. He rubbed his chin against her chin. He nibbled the bristly end of her mustache. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed his dimples. Darling. Devilish. Dangerous to any female with a functioning brain.

So what did that say about her?

About Adrienne deWolfe

Adrienne is the #1 bestselling author of action-packed Historical Western Romances, where feisty Heroines buck the conventions and true Heroes must be wickedly funny. Book 2 in the Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series is titled Dance to the Devil’s Tune. It will be released later this year. Check out Adrienne’s sassy ladies and sizzling rogues at http://WildTexasNights.com.