A Heart Divided (Heart of the Rockies #1) - Kathleen Morgan

This is the last of the books I got through during vacation.  I've read this author before.  She has Daughter of Joy up for free.  I believe that it's been free for a long time and that I read it shortly after I got my Kindle.  I have also read Child of the Mist, which was a good book, yet a little depressing at the same time. 

This is another feud book.  I found it interesting that two of the three books I read during spring break involved feuding families.  Sarah's father feels that he was cheated out of his ranch by the Wainwrights.  His father went out to the ranch drunk and while trying to threaten the man he feels is responsible, he ends up shooting a small boy.  The man's wife is pregnant and ends up giving birth that night to Cord.  She ends up dying due to the birth.

The Caldwells have now sworn to get vengeance on the Wainwrights any way they can.  Years later, the father's hatred has spilled over to his two older sons.  He gets Sarah involved by using her younger brother's illness to convince her that they have to do what they can to help him, even steal.

At the Wainwright ranch, Sarah tries to seduce Cord, not knowing who he is.  She's just following instructions to distract the ranch hand while her family robs the house.  She's an innocent and has no idea what she is doing.  When her family comes back and sees who it is, they start to beat him.  Sarah prevents them from killing him and they escape.

Cord ends up recognizing her on the street one day and makes a citizen's arrest.  He decides to keep her at his house until the sheriff returns.  While there, Sarah has to face some hard realities about the family she has tried to keep together at all costs and the family that she is now a part of.

The characters in this book were very likable.  Cord was a man that never seemed to be good enough for his father.  Sarah was a woman with a heart torn between the man she loves and her family.  I especially enjoyed Cord's brother and the housekeeper.  They see the feelings that Sarah and Cord are trying to hide and has some fun trying to get them to admit them.

I did like this book.  It did have the elements of the depressing in there, but it wasn't near as overwhelming as it was in Child of the Mist.  I found it interesting that the author skipped the wedding completely, even though there was more story after it.  I'm not used to that.  I found the addition of Cord's stepsisters to be a little unnecessary, but it seems that the second book in the series, A Love Forbidden, is about one of those sisters.  I was hoping that it would be about Nick, Cord's brother that was crippled by the gunshot.  He was a great character.  Anyway, A Love Forbidden is due out May 1st.  I'm going to go ahead and track it.  Good Book!