Spring of My Love

My one nit with the book is that if I read "right" or "sugar" one more time I'm gonna get violent:-) Other than that, the dialogue's great, the characters are realistic, charming or stubborn as they may be. The story's nicely paced, things actually happen, not just a they meet and fall in love sort of deal...far from it actually. Aiken's got a nice style and knows how to create distinctive voices for her characters. I wouldn't say this is my fav of the series, but I liked each of the 3 books in their own way. They're well worth owning and reading.

Angel, 18, has been left a large spread at the death of her father. Her "crop" is sheep instead of the more popular cattle in this part of Colorado. She also has the ONLY source of water and a drought has been bad for the area. Therefore, many ranchers are just itching to get her land with its' water. Angel intends to honor her dad by carrying on, by herself, what he built and was his pride and joy. Most men did not see her as capable though, and started making her offers of various sorts. She refused them all and stood her ground, earning the reputation as being more stubborn than a mule and a wild, mad mountain woman. It is only after Angel is severly injured does she accept even the slightest amount of help from her neighbor, Jeremy. She resents the intrusion into her private life, but she is unable to carry out her obligations without Jeremy. This book takes place and overlaps characters with the first two of the trilogy which makes for very interesting glimpses into the lives of characters we met earlier. April has made friends with 4-5 of the hard working women in town and enemies of most of the men. Some very heavy chapters will leave the reader unable to put the book down for fear we will lose our dear Angel to the angry, greedy men who are losing all they own. I think this is the best of the three books and a very tender love story along with being very deep and distressing at times.