Frontiersman's Daughter, The: A Novel, By Laura Frantz

A spunky young woman faces the harshness of life and wild Indians in her search for love and fulfillment in the Kentucky wilderness

Lael Click has lived on the Kentucky frontier her whole life. She loves the freedom she has to run barefoot and gather herbs and roots for cooking and tending wounds. But her family is haunted by a tragic past that continually shadows her. Once a captive of the Shawnee, her father is trapped between the world of Indians and white men, and Lael feels the same pull, especially when a handsome brave begins to leave her gifts.

Still, her heart lies with another man—one of which her father disapproves. When the young man asks for her hand, she finds herself soon whisked off to a fancy ladies’ school hundreds of miles from home and all that is familiar.

When Lael finally returns home, many things have changed. She tries to fit back into her old life, but finds it harder than she expects. With a new doctor in town, Lael has competition for her healing potions. But the interesting and troubling man draws her, even though she tries to avoid him. Is he the one who will finally break through her walls of protection and finally touch her heart? Or will an older love ruin everything?

The Frontiersman's Daughter is an epic coming of age story about a young woman living in the wilds of the Kentucky frontier in 1777. Indian attacks are frequent, but Lael doesn’t fear them as most folks do. She runs free, living life as she sees fit, even when others look down on her. Ms. Franz has done an excellent job creating Leal’s feisty character and of bringing this historical era to life with her vivid description and precise details of the time period and setting.

While I enjoyed this book for the most part, in the beginning, when Lael is just thirteen, she seems to act much older than her years. Also, there is an element of suspense with the possibility of Indian attacks at any time and the danger from Lael’s naïve frolicking alone in the woods, but there were times the book moved too slowly for me, especially when Lael is away. But hold fast and finish this book, because there are several excellent black moments toward the end and a highly satisfying ending. I enjoyed reading about this unique time period that I’ve not read about in other novels. The Frontiersman's Daughter is an epic novel, complete with a spunky, determined heroine, Indian attacks, an intriguing wilderness setting, a faith message deftly woven into the story, and a romance that tugs at your heart.

Lye in Wait (A Home Crafting Mystery), By Cricket McRae

Jo Ann Vicarel - Library Journal

When Sophie Mae Reynolds discovers the corpse of her handyman in her workshop where she makes soaps and other beauty products, she shifts into amateur-sleuth mode and places herself in danger as soon as possible. McRae crafts strong characters, including Sophie's best friend, Meghan; Meghan's ten-year-old daughter; and an aging corgi. She also spins a credible, enjoyable plot. This debut series is set in Cadyville, WA, which is just north of Seattle. For cozy and crafts fans.

Kirkus Reviews

A soapmaker who finds a corpse in her workshop can't control her urge to investigate any better than she can control her inventory of oatmeal-milk bath salts. Even though lye is an essential ingredient in her craft, soapmaker Sophie Mae Reynolds swears that the sodium hydroxide that killed handyman Walter Hanover didn't come from her. She lives with her best friend Meghan Bly, and there's just too much risk to Meghan's ten-year-old daughter Erin, so all her supplies are locked carefully away in the cabinets that line her basement workshop. Of course, she can't explain where the lye that killed Walter did come from, or why he chose to drink it in her workshop-facts that don't escape the keen notice of Detective Barr Ambrose. But it isn't just to clear herself that Sophie Mae visits Walter's aging mother Tootie and checks out the Beans R Us coffee shop, where Walter spent afternoons playing cribbage with Debby and Jacob Silverman. No matter how often Ambrose warns her to leave sleuthing to the professionals, she has to conceal the boxes she rescued from Walter's burned-out cottage from the police so that she can check them for clues herself-even after a mysterious driver tries to end her snooping with a van. McRae's debut is mainly lather.

Sixteen Brides, By Stephanie Whitson

Sixteen Brides by Stephanie Grace Whitson isn’t really about sixteen brides at all, but five. However, that’s quite enough main characters to challenge any writer. Whitson has managed to pull off telling this story, with its quintet of leading ladies, with remarkable aplomb.

The story begins in the spring of 1871 as a motley collection of single women find themselves together on the train heading from St. Louis to Cayote, Nebraska and a new start. Under the auspices of the Ladies Emigration Society, Mr. Hamilton Drake has promised these civil war widows, homesteads. However, before they ever reach their destination, they discover Drake’s mail-order bride scheme. Eight of the passengers (of whom Caroline, Ruth, Ella, Sally and Hettie feature prominently), get off the train at Plum Grove, insisting they will make their own way from there

Over the next few months we follow them as they forge new friendships, stake a homestead claim, build a sod house, grow and harvest a garden while each takes giant strides in healing the hurts from the past that she has brought with her.

Whitson does a remarkable job of telling the stories of the featured women (in bits and pieces, which we fit together over the course of the book). She also adds to the mix  two teens, a couple of single homesteaders, a handsome rancher, and a steady pioneer couple. It’s quite a crowd. Though I did have moments of confusion at the outset, thanks to the author’s skill with characterization (lots of interchanges between and among characters with each main one convincingly fleshed out through speech, appearance and mannerisms) I was soon right at home with this lively, often hurting bunch.

Whitson’s writing style is proficient and brisk. She manages to say a lot in a few sentences, as evidenced by this opening scene of the community’s sod-house building bee for the new homesteaders:

“The farthest thing from Ella’s mind was to create a sensation. She didn’t even think about the ramifications, really. She just did what she naturally wanted to do and what she was gifted to do, which was not lingering near the supply tent pouring lemonade and coffee or sharing community gossip while the ladies sliced bread or opened jars of pickles or served up pie. These things were part of Mama’s world, but not Ella’s. And so, after Mr. Cooper plowed the first furrow, and Will Haywood cut the curls of sod into three-foot lengths, and after Frank Darby drove his flatbed wagon up so the sod strips could be loaded and hauled to the building site, it was the most natural thing in the world for Ella to be loading sod. The thing was, that didn’t seem natural to anyone else.” p. 194.

As each main player faces the mistakes and pain that has brought him or her to this place, Whitson offers us insights into forgiveness, communication, trust, self-acceptance, marriage, parenting, and faith. The message in that last department is outspokenly Christian with some of the main sympathetic characters offering a compelling case for faith. (Each chapter also starts out with a Bible verse epigraph. These seemed odd to me; I wasn’t sure what they were meant to achieve and seemed more of a distraction than an asset to the story.)

A Kiss of Adventure, By Catherine Palmer

Desperate and on the run, Tillie Thornton finds herself in an uneasy partnership with Graeme McLeod, a daring adventurer who comes out of nowhere to thwart the plot of Tillie’s would-be kidnappers. Now these two must join forces against their common enemies, as well as the challenges of nature, as they embark on a quest that could bring them the answers they seek—or cost them everything.
Formerly published as The Treasure of Timbuktu.

About the Author
Catherine Palmer lives in Missouri with her husband, Tim, and sons Geoffrey and Andrei. She is a graduate of Southwest Baptist University and holds a master's degree in English from Baylor University. Her first book was published in 1988. Since then she has published nearly forty novels, many of them national bestsellers. Catherine has won numerous awards for her writing, including the Christy Award, the highest honor in Christian fiction. Twice she has been nominated for the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award. Total sales of her novels number nearly two million copies. 

CRY UNCLE, By Judith Arnold

After witnessing a professional hit, Seattle architect Pamela Hayes has testified in court against the hit man. Unfortunately, a mistrial is declared and the hit man is released on bail while awaiting a new trial. He intends to silence the sole witness to murder—Pam—before that new trial begins. She needs to hide, and she runs as far as she can: to steamy Key West., Florida.

Jonas Brenner, a Key West bar owner and easy-going slacker, is about to lose custody of his orphaned five-year-old niece—unless he can convince the courts that he’s a responsible father. What he needs is a prim and proper wife who will create the illusion that Lizard, as his niece likes to be called, is being raised in a stable environment.

What Pam needs is a new identity. Joe offers her a deal: if she marries him and takes his name, no Pacific Northwest hit man is going to find her. In return, she can pose as Joe’s respectable wife, dutifully caring for the rambunctious, feather-wearing Lizard.

Of course, this will be a marriage in name only. No sex. No emotions. No love. Which, once Pam and Joe move in together and the sparks begin to fly, is easier said than done.

CRY UNCLE was originally published by Harlequin Books.

“When a classy architect joins in a marriage of convenience with a slightly scruffy bartender to hide from a hit man out to kill her, frustration runs high, making both want to CRY UNCLE and get on with the loving. Judith Arnold is a perennial favorite whose keen wit and way with mystery always hits the mark.***½”—RT Book Reviews