A High Sierra Christmas (Book Review) · 11:15pm Dec 1st, 2018

Denny Jensen rides again! Kinda. Not really...

Last year, I posted a review of The Jensen Brand, a Western novel which featured a Sour Sweet-esqe cowgirl named Denny Jensen. This year we got the next book where she pops up and it's a Christmas story! A Christmas story involving cannibalism, rape threats, and drug-induced suicide... but a Christmas story nonetheless!

It's December 1901. Denny, her twin brother Louis, and their famous gunfighting father Smoke, are set to travel to Reno, Nevada to join the rest of their family for the holiday. Meanwhile, fresh-out-of-prison Frank Colbert receives a telegram that his old gang is plotting a huge bank robbery in Reno. He'll get a cut, but only if he can get there in time. Unfortunately for everyone, an avalanche in the Sierra Nevada Mountains blocks the train tracks that offer the fastest route.

That's when a crazy plan emerges. Smoke Jensen acquires an old stagecoach with the aim of getting through the mountains to arrive at Reno by Christmas. To do this, they must travel the infamous Donner Pass. For those who don't know, the Donner Party incident was a real-life tragedy where travellers became stranded in the winter of 1846-47 and resorted to cannibalism for survival. The Jensens reluctantly pick up a band of extra passengers (including the desperate Colbert) and set off on their daring adventure where many dark secrets shall be revealed...

In the end, A High Sierra Christmas was a good read, but it sure took a long time to get there. There are way too many characters and way too many subplots. There's the stagecoach carrying ten people, each with a backstory. There's the bank robbers in Reno taking a teller's wife and daughter hostage. There's the filler episodes involving other Jensen family members. There's the supposed mountain monster called the "Donner Devil" lurking about. Oh, and did I mention that this whole cluttered tale is framed as a flashback being told to a random little boy in the 1960s?

As a consequence, the multiple characters/subplots end up pushing poor Denny to the sidelines. While she does get her moments of nad-kicking and leadership, most of the heroics end up going to the menfolk. Denny's still the most amusing character by far, naturally. We also get to learn that she gets strangely annoyed if she misses a chance to see her twin nude...

"Where's your brother?" he asked.
Denny wore a dark blue traveling outfit with a hat of the same color perched on upswept blond curls. A pair of fawn gloves lay in her lap. She looked at Smoke and said, "He's already in with the doctor. He didn't want me to go with him, of course." She blew out a breath. "I don't know why. It's not like we've ever been that shy around each other."
"Yeah, but you're not kids anymore."

Twincest is best in the West?