A Promise for Spring (Heart of the Prairie #3) - Kim Vogel Sawyer

I've been skipping around this series, and for the most part, enjoying the ride.  I've read book 1 Waiting for Summer, book 6 Courting Miss Amsel, and book 9 Song of My Heart. This is the third book in this series.

Emmaline has traveled from England to get married to her fiance, Geoffrey.  When last she saw him, it was five years ago, and he had vowed to bring her to him in one year. Now that she has endured a long, tedious journey to the Kansas prairie, she feels like she doesn't know her future husband and in the last moment declares that she won't marry Geoffrey.

Geoffrey has been working hard to make his home with Emmaline in mind.  He has known her since she was a child and has been anxiously awaiting her arrival.  He is surprised at the coolness that he is met with and isn't sure what to do about her sudden refusal to marry.  It is decided that she will come and be Geoffrey's housekeeper.  She has agreed to give him until spring and if she wants to leave, Geoffrey agrees to send her back to her father.

Emmaline suddenly has found this independence that she wasn't allowed to display at home.  She didn't feel like her father really loved her that much, he just bossed her around and made her leave her homeland to marry a man she doesn't feel like she doesn't know anymore.  Geoffrey, instead of wooing Emmaline, treats her like staff and bosses her around like her father did.  Her reaction is to try and head back to England alone, breaking her word.

For basically the first half of the book, I was irritated with both characters.  Emmaline was a childish brat who wanted everything her way or she would run off.  I found myself rolling my eyes when she kept trying to run off.  Geoffrey irritated me as well.  He basically would criticize Emmaline's efforts and boss her around.  They both seemed pretty clueless for much of the book.

Much to my surprise, I did enjoy the book.  It shocked me a little, because Geoffrey's quick temper and Emmaline's irrational behavior didn't give me any indication that they would be able to become one, but I thought that the second half of the book saw both of them change enough that the rest of the story was good.  As I have learned with the other books in this series, they can be read individually with no problems.  I have a few more of this series and look forward to reading more.  Good Book!

Spring of My Love (Silver Hills Trilogy #3) - Ginny Aiken

After reading Song of My Soul, book 2, I was anxious to read more of this series.

Angel's father has just died and now she has the task of taking care of the ranch alone.  In this area, drought has hit many of the cattlemen hard.  There are quite a few of them that are on the brink of losing everything.  If the men in town find out that Angel is on her own, it could become dangerous for her.

Jeremy lives close to Angel and once word spreads that her father is gone, he knows that he will have a lot of competition for that land.  He assumes that Angel would like nothing more than to sell her land and move somewhere else.  What he runs into is a stubborn, red-headed woman running around in pants and running the ranch on her own.

Angel is wary of Jeremy from the moment she sees him.  She knows that none of the ranchers approve of her raising sheep.  The cattlemen see her as not only ruining the pasture but also hogging all the water.  Once she gets attacked, she starts to see that there might be more to Jeremy than she first thought.  While he isn't sure exactly what he's supposed to do, he knows that he just can't leave her out there alone.

I really enjoyed this book.  While it is the final book in the trilogy, I was hoping that there had been some sort of followup that would address Wynema, independent photographer that has sworn off marriage.  At the end, she is on her way to document the plight of the Indians on the reservations.  It would have been great to see her side-swiped by love.

I was able to pick up the first book and look forward to finishing out the series.  It doesn't matter if you read these out of order.  As long as you can accept that you'll see that the characters from the previous books get married, you can enjoy them in any order.  Good Book!

Elisha's Bones (Jack Hawthorne #1) - Don Hoesel

This book isn't normally what I read at all.  After receiving an email containing information about this author's newest book, I noticed this one has been free for a while and decided to step out of my comfort zone and give it a shot.

In the beginning, Jack is excavating in the Valley of the Kings with his brother.  An incident takes the life of his brother and leaves Jack questioning whether it was an accident. Years later, he is approached by a man trying to find the bones of Elisha, a relic fabled to bring the dead back to life.  Jack has his doubts, but he ends up following the clues wherever they may take him.

While he follows the clues, he comes in contact with many people from his past and it seems that none of them are all that happy to see him.  When the body count starts to rise and Jack and his former fiance are targets, they realize that they only way to get out of the mess is to find the bones.  Somehow it's all related to the death of Jack's brother and he becomes obsessed with learning the truth.

I found myself trudging through the first half of the book.  The second half of it picked up and I found myself more interested and wanting to read on to the end.  I found that the ending left me feeling like I had missed something, and I had to read the last part a couple times.  It wasn't all that satisfying in that respect.  I also felt disconnected from the characters.  It seemed like anyone who talked to Jack ended up dead, but he just kept talking to people and watching them die.  It wasn't until the end that Jack makes a connection to God.  The glimpses of it that we see from those he interacts with were pretty shallow.

I made it through the book, but I pretty much forced my way through the first half.  I felt like there could have been less descriptions of the surroundings and more depth to the conversations between the characters.  I thought Jack was basically an island for most of the book and it just wasn't up my alley.  This book is part of a series.  Book 2 is called Serpent of Moses and the third book just came out the first of July, Blood and Bone.  My final decision is that it's a pass for me.

Waiting for Summer's Return (Heart of the Prairie #1) - Kim Vogel Sawyer

In the past, I have read two other books in this series.  As far as I can tell, not many of the books have anything to do with others.  Courting Miss Amsel is book 6 and Song of My Heart is book 8.  I couldn't really find connections between the two.  I saw this book was up for free this month, so I picked it up.  I placed more of this author's books on my watch list and they all dropped at the same time.  When I picked this up, I didn't know that it dealt with the Mennonites.  I don't have anything against books about this culture, but I normally don't enjoy those or ones dealing with the Amish.  Not sure why.  They just don't appeal to me.

Summer has lost everything.  Her husband and four children were taken by typhoid and now she is alone.  The Mennonites in the community seem to have little interest in helping her, and she has little interest in living.  All alone, she ends up taking up an offer of employment with a miller who needs help with his son's schooling.  She's given up on God and Peter tries to show her the way back.  The community isn't sure about the intelligence of Peter's plan to have Summer stay in his shack and they both suffer the effects of the local gossips.

Peter's wife died on the way to America and now he lives with her grandmother and his son.  When his son falls from a tree and breaks some ribs, he hears that Summer is a recent widow and may be an educated woman.  Feeling that God is asking him to reach out to her, he does his best to make sure she is comfortable in the shack.  After a while, she seems to fit in perfectly with their family, but she has plans to build her own house and move close to the graves of her family.  Peter's son believes she would make the perfect mother, but it takes some time for their feelings to become clear for them.

Overall, it was a pretty decent read, but I did have some issues with it.  Peter's accent was my major qualm.  His native language is German, but at times he has no accent, other times a slight accent, and the worst is when it is so bad he sounds like Yoda.  "Come when ready you are" is something close to what I read and all I could think of was the raspy little voice of a small green guy with a lightsaber.  And the interactions between the native people should have theoretically been in German, therefore not needing any sort of accent.  Instead it seemed like they spoke to each other in English.  I did like the main point of finding joy past the pain and thought that was well done.  The second book in the series is about the son of Peter, but I don't have it on my watch list.  The ones I was watching all popped up as price drops at the same time.  If this had been the only book by this author I had read, I'm not sure that I would have had any on my watch list, but I know that I can enjoy her books and look forward to reading the ones I purchased.

Song of My Soul (Silver Hills Trilogy #2) - Ginny Aiken

I was a little surprised when I got an email for a price drop on this book and the third book in the series.  As far as I could tell, I haven't read anything by this author before.  I even went so far as to check my Kindle library in case it had just been a long time.  I don't normally place an author I've never read on my watch list, so I decided to read it as soon as I could.  My curiosity was heightened!

This book tells the story of Phoebe, a recent widow from a cave-in at the mine.  Her Shaker background is something that certain people in the town are more than happy to hold against her.  She feels that the people weren't bad, they just were misguided in their beliefs.  Now that her husband is gone, she runs the mercantile that is run by the mining company.  Her future rests in the hands of the new owner.

Adrian is on the run.  He's hoping that he'll be able to fade into the background as the new owner of the mine, but he discovers that the more privacy he desires, the more attention he draws to himself.  He tries to stay away from Phoebe, for her own sake as much as his, but circumstances don't make that possible.  They end up working together to solve problems with the treatment of the Chinamen, find out about an opium problem and try to solve murders.

I enjoyed this book.  I found that Phoebe and her friends struck me as a little "holier than thou" at times, and I thought that Adrian was almost a little too cowardly at times.  The end also seemed a little rushed.  Even with these minor issues, I found myself  wanting to find out if Adrian makes peace with his past and if he and Phoebe can get together.

I purposely looked at the names involved in the first book to see if I would feel like I was missing anything by reading them out of order.  While I saw the names and read a little of their background, I didn't feel like it would be an absolute necessity to read them in order. While I'm still not sure why these were on my watch list, I was glad that I got a chance to read this book and look forward to reading the next book in the trilogy, Spring of My Love, which seems to be about characters that I didn't read anything about it in this book.  Book 1, Light of My Heart, is still on my watch list.  Good Book!

Spring Meadow Sanctuary (The Shepherd's Heart #4) - Lynnette Bonner

This is the fourth and final book in The Shepherd's Heart series.  I've read Rocky Mountain Oasis, High Desert Haven and Fair Valley Refuge and enjoyed all three.

We finally get around to the story of Cade and Sharyn.  There are hints of Sharyns's affection for Cade in the other books, but we don't really get to see any significant interaction until book 3, Fair Valley Refuge, where Cade tells Sharyn that he sees her as a sister and can't see anything more for their future.

At the beginning of this book, Cade has come back and finally realized his mistake only to learn that Sharyn has moved away.  She couldn't stand the sympathetic looks of the townspeople any more and just had to move on.  There's a man in town that seems to have his eye on Sharyn and she is determined to forget Cade.  Problem is, her heart doesn't quite agree with that plan.

Cade is in town to check into horse rustling.  He infiltrates the gang and ends up part of a plan to kidnap the schoolteacher.  Unaware that Sharyn's original job had disappeared and she is the local schoolteacher, Cade ends up with quite a shock when he goes to kidnap the woman he loves.  Not only is he going to have to keep her safe from people that would like her dead, he also wants to convince her that he was wrong to have broken her heart.  Both tasks will be hard.

I think that this book was my favorite of the series.  I believe that if you read any of them out of order or alone, you wouldn't be disappointed, but I do recommend that you read Fair Valley Refuge if you want to get a more complete story of Cade and Sharyn.  At the end of the book, the author reveals that this is the end of the story of the Jordan family but that she may have the characters make a cameo appearance in another series.  I recommend this whole series.  They are uplifting, fairly quick reads that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Good Book!  Great Series!

Fair Valley Refuge (The Shepherd's Heart #3) - Lynnette Bonner

In the past, I have read Rocky Mountain Oasis and High Desert Haven, the first two books in the series. Since I enjoyed those, I was happy to pick up the other two.

This series follows members of the Jordan family and this one follows Rocky.  He has loved Victoria for a long time but knows that his job as a lawman pushes her away. Her father was killed in the line of duty and now Victoria tries to ignore her feelings for Rocky. When Rocky takes her to the train station to check on the orphan train, one thing leads to another and he ends up married to her.  Now he lives with a new wife and three children.

Victoria is determined to keep her heart safe.  She feels that God doesn't care about her anymore or what happens to her.  He seems to take away everyone she loves, so her solution is to guard her heart as much as she can from any hurt at all.  When she marries Rocky to save the orphans on the train, she doesn't quite realize the path that she's started on.  Rocky has taken his vows seriously and has no plans on ending the marriage.

Victoria has hidden the fact that she was adopted because she feels that people will look at her differently.  As a child, she was told that there was something wrong with her and that was why she was abandoned.  Not knowing the truth, Victoria eventually believes that it had to be true.  It has clouded the way she views herself.  She will have to make peace with her past before she can embrace her present and look forward to her future.

As with the other two in the series, I enjoyed it.  There were a few moments in there when I skimmed a bit because of my prudish tendencies.  There wasn't anything in there objectionable, but I had a few blushes while I read it.  I'm not quite sure why.  The last book in the series, Spring Meadow Sanctuary, is about Cade and Sharyn, Rocky's sister. As a series, I would say that you could read them out of order with no problems, but there was a lot more interaction between Cade and Sharyn than I expected and I think it's important interaction to their relationship.  I'll address this after I've read Spring Meadow Sanctuary, but overall you could read this book alone with no issues.  Good Book!

The Accidental Bride (Big Sky Romance #2) - Denise Hunter

After enjoying A Cowboy's Touch, I was happy to pay a few dollars to pick up this next book in the series.

Shay is a character that we get glimpses of in A Cowboy's Touch.  Her story is the main focus in this book.  Fourteen years ago, she was left at the altar by the love of her life, Travis.  Since then she has made one mistake after another.  She fears the whispering gossip of the community and hides as best she can.  When the man who broke her heart shows back up, Shay is determined to place that wall around her heart and not let him inside at all costs.  Unfortunately, she breaks her foot and ends up accepting Travis's help and finds out that a simple re-enactment has turned into a lot more.

Travis has regretted leaving Shay that day, but he was chasing his dreams and was young.  He knows that he has a hard road ahead, but he tackles it with a patience that impresses Shay at times, and she ends up trying that patience at others.  He wants her back in his life, this time for good.

I really did like this book.  In relation to the first book, Abigail is Shay's best friend and her story is told here and there, but I don't think that you would lose a lot by reading them out of order.  I found myself drawing parallels between Shay and myself.  The way she cares what other people think and hides from things sounds very familiar.  I liked her journey and even though I wasn't fond of Travis at first, he showed Shay that he had changed and he grew on me after that.

I have already placed the third book in this series, The Trouble with Cowboys, on my watch list and look forward to reading the story of Dylan, Wade and Travis's friend.  The Accidental Bride was a nice, light read and I recommend it for the romantics out there! Good Book!

The Fairest Beauty - Melanie Dickerson

The latest in her Fairy Tale series, The Fairest Beauty by Melanie Dickerson is a new take on the story of Snow White.  I have read The Healer's Apprentice, which is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty.  I've also had a chance to read The Merchant's Daughter, which is based on Beauty and the Beast.  I enjoyed both of those, so it was an easy choice for me to pick this one up.

Sophie has been living under the cruel reign of the duchess for so long that she fears that her dream of being free will never come to pass.  When a handsome stranger comes to the village telling her that she's not really a servant but the daughter of the deceased duke, Sophie is unsure whether or not to believe him.

Gabe has been dismissed by his family as being irresponsible.  When an old woman appears on their doorstep telling his family that the duke's daughter lives, they know that they need to check it out and rescue the young woman if they can.  She is, after all, betrothed to Gabe's older brother.  Since his brother can't go because of a broken leg, Gabe seizes the opportunity to show up his brother for once.

When the truth becomes known, Gabe knows that he needs to rescue Sophie from the duchess.  That will be no easy task as she has everyone living in fear of her.  Once they escape the castle, their problems are far from over.  Gabe and Sophie try to fight their feelings for each other but admitting their feelings to each other is only the first step in a long road toward actually ending up together.

I really enjoy Melanie Dickerson's style with these books.  I like finding the details of the fairy tales incorporated into the story in such a way as to avoid it being cheesy.  As with the other two books, this was a great read and I look forward to reading more from this author.  In October, The Captive Maiden is set to come out.  From the summary I read, it sounds like a retelling of Cinderella but don't quote me on that!  I could be wrong. Regardless of what fairy tale it is based on, I look forward to reading it.  Good Book!

Fancy Pants on sale for free today! - Cathy Marie Hake

I believe this deal is only for today.  Fancy Pants is the first book in the Only in Gooding series.  Book 2 is Forevermore, book 3 is Whirlwind, book 4 is called That Certain Spark and book 5 is Serendipity. I've read Forevermore a long while back and also Whirlwind. I've had the rest of this series on my watch list for a while and was happy to snatch this one up for free.  Get it while you can!

Price drop on Blue Moon Promise - Colleen Coble

Just had a notification that Blue Moon Promise is down to $1.99.  That's the lowest I've ever seen it!  Tidewater Inn is also at $1.99.  Have a great 4th of July!

A Cowboy's Touch (A Big Sky Romance #1) - Denise Hunter

In the past, I have only read this author as part of other books.  Notably the Smitten books.  I'm not sure why I've never read anything from her, most likely I just haven't come across her books at the right price.  When this one popped up for $1.99, I decided to give it a chance.

Abigail works for her mother at a struggling magazine.  When she starts having problems with hypertension and headaches, she is sent to the middle of nowhere in Montana and told to rest.  While she's there, she's supposed to be checking in on her great aunt to see if she has the faculties to remain alone in her house.

Wade is hiding from his past.  When his daughter's nanny backs out at the last minute, he's left with finding someone else in two days to watch her for the summer.  Meeting Abigail seems to be the perfect solution, but he discovers that she's making her way past the wall that he erected around his heart when his wife died mysteriously.  He was a big name in the rodeo world back then, now he's a quiet rancher out in the middle of nowhere.

When Abigail finds out who he is, she feels like God has given her the opportunity to save her mother's magazine.  She begins her snooping, but what starts out as the perfect story soon turns into a crisis.  How can she betray these people that have been so nice to her? And what about her feelings for Wade?  She doesn't really believe that Wade had anything to do with his wife's death, but hides from Wade what she's up to.

I really liked this book.  I don't have a lot of contemporary authors that I really like, but this book was so well written that Denise Hunter has made it onto my list of authors to track.  I picked up the next book in this series, The Accidental Bride, which was only $3.  I placed the third one in the series, The Trouble With Cowboys, on my watch list.  I also added the Nantucket series 3-in-1 book to my watch list and also the fourth in that series.  Excited to read more from this author.  Good Book!