Soaring Eagle/ Stephanie Grace Whitson / 297 p

     This is book 2 of the Prairie Winds trilogy.  It involves Jesse's daughter Lisbeth and her life after her husband's death.  Lisbeth has lost her husband and her mother within weeks of each other and she is lost and central to the book, lost from God.  This story is her road back to faith and re-connecting with others.  Her half brother Soaring Eagle is also disconnected and lost in a changing world.  The late 1800's was not good for Native Americans as they were forced to reservations.  Sitting Bull took his people to Canada (and that didn't end well).  Soaring Eagle ends up alone and finally comes to the Santee Reservation.  This is a better book than the first one although there is much more religious thought in it.  Many Christian novels preach and this one is no different.  Still, I would recommend it to readers whether Christian, seeker, or other. 

A Most Inconvenient Marriage / Regina Jennings / 324 pages

     This new Christian fiction is a post Civil War novel set in the Ozarks of Missouri.
Abigail Stuart who worked as a nurse for the Union in St. Louis marries a dying Confederate soldier.  He wants to marry her so that she will take care of his invalid sister and his mother.  In return, she will have a home and a horse farm.  She takes that action since she is estranged from her family and her love is for horses which had been the family business.
     The story is about what happens when the "dead" soldier returns home from the war to find that he is married to a complete stranger.  Whom did she marry?  How will his fiancée take this news?  How will this drama play out?  And, yes, there is plenty of drama.  It is a very entertaining book and fairly fresh for a romance novel.  (The horse even gets drunk in one chapter)  The author also brings out the post war animosity that continued in Missouri for years after the battles ceased.  This is definitely recommended.

Wild West Christmas / Kathleen Y'Barbo, Lena Nelson Dooley, Darlene Franklin, Vickie McDonough 364 p. 20th century challenge

Wild West Christmas / Kathleen Y'Barbo, Lena Nelson Dooley, Darlene Franklin, Vickie McDonough 364 p.

Four single daughters live with their widowed father on a cattle ranch in Horsefly, Texas in the 1800s.  Each are blessed with a talent.  Charlsey, "Charlie", can ride, rope and work the ranch with the best of them.  Accountant Harold Miller III almost blows it when he courts Charlsey and ignores that dusty cow-puncher "Charlie".  Sharp-shooter Lucy brings home the meat for the family.  When she joins Major Paulson's Wild West Show, shades of Annie Oakley, she begins to fall for the Major's evangelist son, Gordon.  Although Sarah is the horse-trainer on the ranch, cattle rustling is a serious crime.  She fights her attraction to Mexican drifter, Carson Romero when he seems to be a prime suspect.  When Texas Ranger Josef Mueller rides back into town, he brings back the insecurities and hurts she felt when children chanted the rhyme he coined about Bessie Mae, Bessie Mae, plain as day.  Josef is there to do his job, find the bad guy.  He is drawn to beautiful Bessie Mae, but he escaped Horsefly once and he isn't going to return for good.

Unending Devotion / Jody Hedlund / 368 pages

     This Christian romance is set in the 1880's in Michigan.  It is about the conditions in the towns surrounding lumber camps.  Lily is traveling as a photographer's assistant to lumber towns.  As a woman, she is in the vast minority ( about 200 to 1). Many young women were lured to these towns to work in "hotels" only to find themselves caught up in prostitution.  They were unable to leave and suffered greatly.  In this story, Lily's real mission is to rescue her sister who is being held in one of these "hotels".  She meets Connell, a man she is attracted to, but finds that he actually is the son of the owner of one of largest logging companies.  The logging companies were a major part of the problem because in addition to clear-cutting trees, the logging camps full of young men with no diversions were the perfect clients for the taverns and prostitutes.  It was a working relationship which was mutually beneficial. Not so good for the girls or a decent town.
     Most of the action in the book is due to Lily's impulsive decisions, but it is still an interesting book with a satisfactory ending.  It may be the author's favorite character since it looks like the cover art used her as a model.  Check it out.

The Preacher's Bride / Jody Hedlund / 376 pages

     This historical Christian romance is set in Roundhead times in England. It seemed to me that the Puritans persecuted themselves almost as much as the Royals did since they had so many rules.  The book is loosely based on the life of John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress.  In this story, the main character, Elizabeth, spends all her time caring for John's children and enduring assaults from a royal gentry who can abuse people without any consequence. She is a very Christian, dedicated young woman of high morals, but seems to have really poor self esteem since she is so old (teens) and unmarried.  She feels her sister is the really attractive one in the family.  Had she not felt this way, I'm not sure she would have stayed so faithfully in the background without receiving even so much as a thank you.
I really wanted her to stand up for herself, but women didn't do that in those days.
    The book seemed familiar.  Apparently I read it before about five years ago.  Still interesting.