Enjoying this series. I am so glad that Hutch & some of the parents finally pulled that water tower down. The boy that fell is paralyzed from the waist down. The mayor & the town council want all involved arrested. Boone refuses to do that. This is the story of Boone finally coming alive after his wife died. His sons are moving back home with him. The youngest keeps wanting to go back to live with his aunt & uncle but with constant love, he starts to feel safe & secure. Now Tara is living across from Boone on the chicken ranch. She has never opened up as to why she went from New York model to chicken rancher. Then her ex calls to ask her to take his daughters for a few weeks as his is getting married. Girls arrive and they are having a good time. Then dad calls to say he wants the girls back so that he can send them to boarding school. The girls run away but they get on a boat that wouldn't get them very far. When Boone finds them, he goes into the river to rescue them. When dad shows up the next day, he never asks how the girls are doing or tell them he loves them. Before he leaves, he gives Tara the girls and Margie puts that in writing. So now its when are we getting married & where will we live. Love that Opal is engaged to the new minister. Stoic widower (cowboy sheriff) and divorced stepmom (urban girl turned chicken farmer) discover true love, instant family (two boys! twin girls!), and allegedly mind-blowing sex, with the help of masculine joshing from his friends, and laughs & tears wisdom from hers. Surely none of that is a spoiler, which is kind of the point of the genre. I don't read romance often, but when I do, (a) I find myself feeling and acting with a little more compassion than usual, fueled by a renewed hope for happy endings for all beings; and (b) I wonder about the difference between Romance and Literary Fiction as genres. In this novel, at least, the core question is whether the characters will find their appropriate social identity; finding it is the key to true, lasting happiness. That's been true for most of the romance I've read. I don't read a lot of literary fiction, but my perception is that one of its common concerns (at least for the last century) is the nature of human identity, and while that can include studies of an individual in their context, the heroic characters stand alone. Perhaps that's because writers of literary fiction experience their own lives as more socially isolated than writers of romance? That can't be universally true. The other thing that strikes me about the gap between literary fiction and romance is that, when I read really good fiction, I don't often emerge as a better person in the near term. I may understand certain ways of being in the world better than I did before; I'm likely to be sadder, maybe wiser - but not so hopeful that everything can work out, that love (in any of its many forms, not just those that lead to hot sex) will find a way, as I am after finishing a romance. After reading great fiction, I'm rarely willing to risk more to make the world a better place. There's no question that romance novels are fantasies, usually cliche, often unimaginatively written, and often loaded with bad habits of heart and mind - and yet, as manipulative, encouraging fables, sometimes they're great.
What do You think about Big Sky River (2012)?
sheriff meets pseudo chicken farmer.... and all that happens is love!!
—ZReader99
Linda Lael Miller always writes good reads!!
—RowanSalem1
