I have not read many books in the this so called ‘acid western’ genre and I’m still not sold on it.
The book is about two brothers who are killers, Brooke and Sugar, who arrive in a town where they were owed money, to find that the town has been ransacked and a different person is now in charge. The two killers do not get along with the new person and get into a spot of trouble. They then have to hide in the woods and that’s where they meet a boy who cant remember who he is and where he came from.
Haints Stay started off very promising, with the brothers arriving in the town to find it destroyed, fighting against the new person in charge and then meeting the unnamed boy. This set it up as a great story about two brothers and a young boy’s journey across a western landscape, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
The story started to dissolve towards the middle of the book where the brothers and the young boy got separated, the story went from great, to just plain weird. I don’t want to say too much because it will give away to many spoilers, but you will know the part I’m talking about when you read it. It seemed to just pop out of nowhere and was not generally needed for the story to progress.
The characters of Brooke and Sugar at the start of the book were great to read about because they had mystery and intrigue about them and it made the reader want to read on and go on a journey with them. This mystery and intrigue and was lost once the plot took a turn for the worse.
I may not of liked the direction the story went in but I did like the writing and I did enjoy reading the first half of the book. The second half of the book was a bit of a struggle to read and I think I only finished it because it was such a short book, if it was any longer I might have just put it down and forgot about it. The writing was brilliant and engaging, even though it was gory and too descriptive at times.
I have never read anything from this author before but I liked his writing so I would definitely read other books by Colin Winnette. I would only recommend this book if you are a avid fan of the ‘acid western’ genre and you enjoy the books. However if this is your first attempt at reading a ‘acid western’ I wouldn’t go in with high expectations.
Thank you for RealReaders and Nudge.com and No Exit Press for sending me this book to give an honest review.
I rate this book 3/5 stars (That is mostly because of the writing)
Mike Reads 