Book Review: The Saga Continues to My Delight

     Bethany House Publishers provided a complimentary copy of Taming the Wind in exchange for an honest book review. Tracie Peterson has wowed me again with the third installment of the Land of the Lone Star series. The Civil War is still fresh in the minds of many folks out in the west. Tensions are high between the opposing Union and Confederate soldiers and the citizens out in Texas are on edge. This volume picks up shortly after Brandon and Laura had moved out of Corpus Cristi to establish a ranch and a family of their own.  Widowed Carissa Lowe joins her pregnant sister and brother-in-law at the ranch with her two-year-old daughter, Gloria, to help out.
     Tyler Atherton, a friend of Brandon, periodically pops up at the ranch for a visit. It soon becomes apparent Carissa has captured his heart. However, Mr. Atherton is a man of his word and doesn't want to promise a future to anyone, especially to Carissa and Gloria, if he is uncertain he can deliver. Carissa keeps a guarded heart after the abuse she suffered at the hands of  Malcolm Lowe. As she allows God's love to fill her heart, He opens her heart to new possibilities. While Tyler and Brandon are out on a months-on-end cattle drive up north both, Tyler and Carissa acknowledge their growing love for one another. Just when Tyler thinks he will be able to proclaim is heart to Carissa, she goes missing.
     It is no wonder Peterson is such an accomplished author. Her stories are complicated and intricate without losing focus on the character development and main plot line. She carries the characters from one saga to the next seamlessly while allowing Carissa's story to step into the foreground and Laura's to the back. We first met Carissa as an immature teen wanting to play in a grown up world in Touching the Sky. In this volume, the reader witnesses Carissa crossing the threshold into womanhood. The emotions are tangible and real that all can relate to in some manner. Nothing is written so fanciful or unrealistically that you know without a doubt this is a work of fiction. Rather, the reader will be captivated with each facet of the story and entangled that it is hard to put the book down.
     In fact, I read the first fifty pages in one sitting and I was so much enamored with the story, the next sitting I read through the end, page 324, closing the book at 3:30 in the morning. So, I recommend you pull out your copy of Taming the Wind before dusk. One thing is for certain, I must get my hands on the first installment of the series. If the story of the Marquardt girls continue I will definitely be following their journey.

Here is the link to the review of  book #2, Touching the Sky. http://godlovinmama.blogspot.com/2012/09/book-review-fell-for-this-fiction.html