Renegade

by Cheyne Curry

What would you do if one minute you were in the 21st century and the next you were in the 19th? One day you're driving a Mustang and the next day you're riding one? Dirty cop Trace Sheridan faces this dilemma as she moves from a present day mob war to a range war over a hundred years in the past. The year is 1879, when cattle barons, crooked lawmen, saloons, painted ladies, cowboys and Indians ruled the Wild West, and laws were only as strong as the gunman who upheld them. In Sagebrush, the town and the sheriff belong to the Cranes, who take what they want or bad things happen. Trace finds this out firsthand when she ends up on the land of Rachel Young, a struggling ranch woman who won't give in to the merciless cattle baron and his obsessed son. For some unexplainable reason, Rachel trusts the enigmatic Trace who uses 21st century sensibilities to battle 19th century turmoil, while Trace is forced to keep the secret of her origin from the attractive and vulnerable Rachel. Renegade is a story of redemption in its purest form as Trace discovers what truly matters in life and how past really is prologue.

Genres: Lesbian, Historical, Westerns, Romance, LGBT, Time Travel, Historical Fiction

376 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2009

About the author

Cheyne Curry was born in Vermont, raised in New York and spent a good portion of her adult life being bicoastal. She enlisted in the US Army in 1977, went to basic combat training and Military Police School at Fort McClellan, Alabama and was stationed at Fort Ord, California and with the Southern European Task Force at Caserma Ederle, Vicenza, Italy as a working MP.

After the military, she experienced many lines of work to pay the bills but spent a majority of her working career in law enforcement/security management.Cheyne has also worked in theater and movies. In 2014, she wrote, co-wrote, scored, produced and occasionally acted in nine short films and hopes to do more, creatively, in 2017. She is an author, screenwriter, artist, musician and composer and would like to put all those talents to use in future projects.

In March of 2016, Cheyne started self-publishing under the banner of Bossy Pants Books.

Cheyne currently lives in the Midwest with her wife (and 3 Grunts Productions co-creator), Brenda Barton, and their fur kids, Liam, 11, a rescued Shepard-mix, Belladonna Bossy Pants, 6, a rescued black Siamese/Bombay and Mesa, a rescued Black Mouth Cur, aged 2.

Reviews

[AnnMaree Of Oz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad time traveling, historic fiction novel - but the time travel is just the device to get the person to the time period for the action to start, and is never discussed again. It would have been interesting for it to be addressed more.

The main drama surrounds sweet Rachel and her harassment (and rape) at the hands of a nefarious family who act like they own and run the old west town of Sagebrush and want her property. The fact that the entire town just kowtows down to these people and were so easily lead with gossip and quite happy to let Rachel be an outcast, to suffer, and be ignored, didn't endear them to me and I certainly didn't want them redeemed and to become her friends again after that.

It was incredibly long, and honestly too long. Then it kind of ended in an anti-climatic way that felt unsatisfying. Although the end for the rapist was maybe a bit violent, but honestly overall there was a disconnect.

I don't think I even really liked the character of Trace, although she was exactly what was needed to end the reign of terror in the town, but still. Although there were moments where she was wonderful to Rachel.

However Rachel's own behaviour flip-flops a lot, as does Trace's and so they were never really consistent in my mind.

I probably wouldn't recommend this one to others because of my conflicting opinion on it.

[P. Industry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am such a sucker for a good western.

Tracy "Trace" Sheridan is a dirty cop on the run - her partner's been shot, her best friend's just been murdered, and now she's fleeing from the crime family she's thoroughly betrayed. Holed up and desperate, she convinces her friend to use his experimental time machine to help her hide; when the smoke fades and the dust clears, she finds herself one hundred years in the past. Luckily before she went she carefully made sure she was wearing men's jeans.

Rachael Young is the orphaned owner of the Triple Y Ranch, with a spread directly in the path of the local conniving cattle barons. Raped by the youngest Crane but still defiant and unwilling to sell, she bends enough to harbour the strange young man she finds bleeding in her doorway. As Trace the former detective learns to ranch, the two fall in love. But Trace needs to learn the new rules of her environment - including figuring out how to farm effectively, all while convincing all and sundry of her masculinity. But once a cop you're always a cop, right?

This was a really excellent read. Although at a few places I had to suspend my willing suspension of disbelief (time travel invented by an ex-cop hermit? Learning to ride a horse and fix a fence in only a couple of days?) and there were a few historical and technical inaccuracies... who cares? It was entertaining. It followed all the best western tropes; the outlaw becoming the new Sheriff, the evil cattle barons, warlike Indian tribesmen, and it was all held together by a tender and believable romance.

Also unusually, although Trace is dressed as a bloke, this doesn't define her. There are no doubts and no angst about her gender or identity. She carries modern attitudes towards pants, swearing, and beer-drinking with her into the past - Trace never thinks of herself as a man. Considering the biggest "woman-dressed-as-man" book in the lesbian western genre (Backwards to Oregon) this is a relief. Instead, she is a confident and dangerous woman - a dirty lawman-turned-good. Rachael compliments Trace with a sweet personalty hiding a core of pure steel.

This is not a particularly heavy book; although things go wrong, there is hardly any angst - instead the characters respond to their problems with action and a pragmatism that made me barrack for them and glory in their triumphs. The baddies were suitably bad. The goodies were suitably good. I enjoyed it immensely.

I highly recommend this book to folks who like their westerns straight and their women less-so.

[MaxDisaster · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 stars
Definitely interesting and well written, but it was a bit like a fanfic.
"A former crooked cop who has a surprisingly well functioning moral compas, remembers law verbatim, is smart, really hot and an expert in martial arts travels through time and space to rescue her damsel in distress..."
It was all a bit too neat and Trace was a bit too perfect. Rachel too now that I think about it.
But still a very enjoyable read

[Tinything · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m always a fan of time-travel story. And i enjoyed this book quite a lot. It about a second chance, redemption of what Trace had done as a dirty cop in her future-modern-time (if u know what i mean). And her second chance came when she literally dropped to the past in the western era, in front of Rachel, the woman who made her want to be a better person, to redeem herself.
Warning: there is a mention of raped and make an attempt to rape, in the book

Though, i’m excited how the story went and how its end, there is not much about time-travel going on beside Trace sent back to past, she got knowledge of modern world, combat skills from her detective training and words that people didn’t understand in that era yet. I was hoping for more of travel-time things, like.. i dont know, the scientic things that relate to time travel that i expected to have in the book.

But, oh well, beside that I enjoyed the book lots. And i really like Trace and Rachel :)

[XR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knowing that Trace was a dirty cop made me hesitate to read the book, but when the blurb said she earns redemption in the past, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. This book was an entertaining and exciting read that had me laughing and cheering for Trace, Rachel, the Pawnee and the people of Sagebrush.

[Htosia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Якщо коротко, то брудна поліціянтка з 21 століття переміщується в другу половину 19-го.
Вона потрапляє в невелике містечко на Дикому Заході, владу над яким захопив клан аморальних, але багатих злодіїв. Вона планує покласти цьому край.

Зацікавив мене в цій книзі саме сетинг. Я бачу історію про жінок на Дикому Заході, я хочу її проковтнути і крапка. І в цьому плані в книги все було добре, бо ну важко зіпсувати настільки популярний та відомий сетинг. Але ось далі в цієї книги починаються якісь дивні проблеми.

Однією з цих проблем є морально сіра протагоністка. Трейс, що на початку загортає розслідування заради бабла, не цурається знатися з місцевою мафією і підігравати їй, опинившись в 1879 році, різко стає взірцем моралі. Це просто не працює, адже її девелопмент стається миттєво.

Першим знайомством у новому світі для Трейс стає Рейчел, одинока молода жінка, яка має серйозні проблеми з місцевою мафією містечка – вони бажають землю, на якій вона живе, а для неї це єдине, що нагадує про давно втрачену сім'ю. Зразу ж стає зрозуміло, що між героїнями має бути роман. І він є. Непоганий. Ось тільки те, наскільки Трейс є Мері Сью ставить палки в колеса при прочитанні. Я серйозно кожного разу пхикала, коли читала, яка ж Трейс сексі. Як вона може і рибки наловити і розкішницю відлизати.

Особливістю цієї історії (родзинкою я б в житті це не назвала, тому так, саме особливість) є те, що Трейс вирішила видавати себе за чоловіка. З її зростом в 183 см (про її зріст згадується регулярно. Але не завдяки якимось ситуаціям, а в тупу фразами «шестифутова пані пішла туди і зробила те») та нейтральними манерами це виходить напрочуд добре. І тільки Рейчел знає правду. Я не проти таких сюжетів, коли жінки в умовах певного історичного часу прикидаються чоловіками заради виживання. Я просто обожнюю Мулан і книгу «Backwards to Oregon» від Jae. Ось тільки тут напруги зовсім немає. Ніяких наслідків вибору Трейс ми не бачимо, все місто просто вірить, що вона чоловік.

Отож, коли ти читаєш цю книгу, то впродовж всіх «поворотів» (яких насправді майже немає) сюжету ти сидиш з думками "окей, я читаю фанфік з купою фансервісу, чи реально видану видавництвом книгу?". Cаме через ці та багато інших проблем цій книзі я поставила дві зірки. Рекомендую до прочитання тільки, якщо ви просто хочете сапфічноств на фоні Дикого Заходу, бо сюжет посередній, зате є хоч якась атмосферність.

[Cab · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit it, I somehow decided to read this book without fully comprehending the whole "time travel" aspect. Needless to say when Detective Trace Sheridan escapes the mob by landing in the 1800's I was surprised at the "twist". Don't get me wrong, I was not disturbed by what was an unexpected to me twist, but pretty clearly described in the book blurb. I managed to bleep right past it because the story got better, more engaging, from that point forward. I really enjoyed this story and especially enjoyed some of the early interactions between Trace and Rachel Young.
Technically I picked this book up to start reading it mid May but never got past the 1st sentence until yesterday. Then I got sucked in and couldn't put it down. This was a fun, easy beach kind of read.

[Elaine Burnes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure what kind of stars to give this. Three seems generous, but I liked it better than two. The writing is cringe worthy, but I found myself liking it. I think this had the potential to be a really good book but just failed in the execution. I liked the premise, I thought she did a good job with the dialog and the action scenes. The back story info dumps were atrocious, the telling and not showing appalling. Trace was very difficult to like in the beginning because she was just an idiot with not reason behind it. Once I got to know her, I liked her better. Plus, she changed.

[Lyra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a corny version of Heart of Gold, but pulls it off so well. Like, how do we get our main character into the past? IDK time machine in her friend's closet. Sure, it's not like it matters anyway.

It does fall into the noble/ mystical savage trope, and TWs for off page SA, but I certainly had a rootin' tootin' good time.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story

This was the first book I read if Cheyne Curry, I was wondering about the time travel aspect. But man it truely worked well. I was drawn in, and kept there. I loved who Tracy became, I love how the reality of the era, was brought into this book. It was very enjoyable.

[Hong Prapaporn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 I enjoy storyline until Trace was shot. That when I have a hard time trying to believe Trace as a smart person who came from future.

[Nina Marie Riffle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

This book held my attention from page one through to the end. I have read it multiple times and it's still one of my favorites.

[Velvet Lounger · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5+

I read "Renegade" several years before I started reviewing, so when Cheyne Curry was doing a reading at Provincetown this year I decided it was time to reread, and put out a review.

"Renegade" is an unusual mix of trad romance, historical fiction and cowbody hero story , with a twist of fantasy fiction and a dollop of Xena. It was originally Xena fan-fiction and published as a novel in 2009 when it was a finalist for The Golden Crown Literary Society’s Best Debut Author.

I love Wild West lesfic romances, and this was the first I remember reading. It’s the combination of the better cowboy movies I grew up watching with my dad and the personal thrill of seeing how women cope with their double lives, wrapping, cross dressing and presenting as straight couples to survive as themselves with the lives and loves they have chosen.

Like Jae’s brilliant Oregon series Renegade doesn’t pretend the women could have been an ‘out’ couple, it deals with the reality of life for women of the time, bullied, raped, and treated as the chattels of the less pleasant male characters.

Trace, Rachel and the other women are very real, their personalities complex and founded on deep back histories. Their actions consistently reinforce the women they have become. At the same time there are a wide range of sympathetic male characters who gradually stand up and support Trace against the baddies including a really well presented relationship with the Native American tribe who have settled the area.

Once the initial sci-fi moment is over, this becomes a classic Wild West story of the strong sheriff saving a down-beaten town from the evil bullies, except of course the sheriff is a woman with rather unusual skills.

Excellent romance, unusual and interesting twist to set up the juxtaposition of 21st century cop in the late 1890’s, and a seriously enjoyable page turner. I never had a doubt Trace would succeed both romantically and saving the town, but that never detracted from the pleasure of finding out how the story would enfold. Definitely one for the re-read pile, and if you haven’t visited Sagebrush yet, suspend your disbelieve and buy this new edition.

[Char Dafoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great western with a slight modern twist.

Trace was a cop in today's age. Unfortunately, she had enemies who wanted her dead. With the help of her geeky tech friend, she was transported back in time. (Yes, kinda like Back to Future, but the tech and modern world doesn't last long in this story). When Trace landed, and I mean literally fell out of nowhere on her backside, she was met with a startled pair of eyes staring back at her. Rachel was performing her everyday tasks; sweeping, gardening, farming, etc, when what appeared to be a man at first glance, dropped out of nowhere right on her front doorstep. Fortunately, for Trace, she had landed in the right spot and not on some pissed off outlaw with a hair trigger. In most stories where a woman masks her sexual identity, it isn't found out until much later on in the story. In this tale, however, Rachel discovered the truth almost right away. I think it brought comfort to Rachel, who lived alone, that another woman, a stronger and more experienced woman, was with her.

I loved reading their relationship blossom, and I loved that where Rachel had experience, Trace did not, and vice versa. They ended up teaching each other. I particularly laughed when Trace attempted to mount a horse for the first time in her life. Of course, this confused Rachel because she was still under the impression that Trace was a cowboy and not a cop from the future. Their romance was sweet and a little hot in some moments, but their trust and faith in one another was what won me over.

[M.E. Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you ever get to a point in your life where you wish you could start over? Trace Sheridan, a dirty cop of the 21st century, gets that opportunity when she is somehow dropped into the late 19th century. The tough police detective who had always been out for herself finds herself on the receiving end of aid from curious and compassionate Rachel Young. While Trace tries to figure out her current situation, she learns of the devastating events in Rachel's life. She has lost her parents, her fiancée, and is not in danger of losing her reputation and ranch to the formidable Crane family who wants her land. The two women forge a fragile alliance, then a united front for Trace's redemption.

[Susana · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was nothing to really like about Renegade. Characters which are inconsistent - of which Trace is the pinnacle - stereotypical and one-dimensional; paper-thin plot - with an overuse of deus ex machina, of which the Pawnees are the main example; and, something that irritated me terribly which was the permanent explanations to what was going on, sometimes by more than one character (!), as if the reader was mentally challenged and unable to understand what was going on in the story.

[MEC · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good old fashioned Western - well, if you take a 20th century detective with questionable morals and dump her into the Old West. Getting Trace there requires a bit of a suspension of disbelief, but if you do suspend your disbelief, Trace and Rachel's trials, tribulations and romance make it worthwhile. Lots of humour, frontier justice and a nicely paced romance.

[Ulla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just loved this novel!! In spite of, or maybe because of, the couple the story is about SO reminds me of my absolutely FAVOURITE couple. (X&G, of course!) But this story is so much more than just a romance,and a bit of time travelling - it's about the Wild, Wild West, and it's so well written, detailed, funny . . .I just loved it!!

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book! Cheyne Curry joined us on episode 16 of Cocktail Hour to discuss it. We talked quite a bit about what the differences are between the online and published version. http://www.cocktailhour.c-spot.net/ar...

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend this book

I enjoyed the time travel back to the old west. The characters are likable and well developed. The love story between the two main characters is very important sweet. Love this book thanks for a great read.

[Heather Henkel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story

I thought this story of redemption was wonderful. It was great to see Trace find something worth fighting for and her experiences in the past were interesting.

[Sharon Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic timepiece read

Cheyne has created two thoroughly enjoyable characters in Trace and Rachel, and this is an incredibly wonderful and unique storyline.