Beach Reading? Nope…Texas Hill Country!

Right after school was out, I decided to bypass the electronic catalog and make a trip to my local library.  Usually, I just reserve books on line, then run in to check them out when they come in, but this day, I enjoyed looking at the displays and finding a new book series for the summer.

Having lived in Dallas five years, I am always interested in books about Texas, so I was attracted to the title of Amanda Cabot’s Bluebonnet Lake, part of her TEXAS CROSSROADS series.  It’s safe to say that bluebonnets were our favorite flowers while we were there, and one of my favorite memories is of our oldest sitting in them in a place we called “Bluebonnet Hill” fingering the delicate blue wildflowers.

Bluebonnet Lake, described by our library as “Christian Fiction,” doesn’t feature any lovely blonde toddlers sitting in a field of flowers, but it is a modern novel with a young marketing professional and the grandmother who raised her, and an incognito handyman taking a break from his “real job.”  These three have time to relax, make new friends, including artists and craftspeople near the rundown Christian-themed resort in the Texas Hill Country, where the grandmother had spent her own honeymoon, making choices along the way.

The next book in this contemporary series, On Lone Star Trail, features a pianist and a motorcyclist, both of them reeling from life-changing events.  The third book, In Firefly Valley, initially made me think of Look Homeward Angel, but when this accountant came home to Dupree, to work for the no-longer rundown “Rainbow’s End” resort, she gradually worked through  changes of place and people, understanding and realization that her home town was a place where she could be happy again.

I enjoyed these books so much, I’ve started Cabot’s new Cimarron Creek Trilogy, with last year’s A Stolen Heart and the next book,  A Borrowed Dream.  Tales of the sheriff, schoolteachers, family history, a sweets-shop baker and a former singer in the early 1800’s can make for entertaining summer reading.  I wonder what will happen in the third book!  Guess I’ll have to wait to find out…