Sandy M’s review of Where the Wind Blows by Caroline Fyffe
Historical Western Romance published by Leisure Books 28 Jul 09

Every now and then a book comes along that is just so tender, so lovely you can’t help the emotions that roll through you. Every now and then an author comes along, who can write such a story successfully. This is one of those books. A story of tender love growing between two strangers thrown together by circumstance and who try to make the best of things. Caroline Fyffe is an author to keep your eye on. This is her debut book, so her future definitely looks very bright.

Chase Logan is a loner, a cowboy who is constantly on the move from ranch to ranch, job to job, never lighting for any length of time. He’d been of a mind to try settling down once and got only heartache and guilt for the effort. When his friend, Nathan Strong, is killed one night after a poker game, Chase takes the responsibility to let the man’s widow know what’s happened to her husband. He never imagined the woman he finds in Jessie, nor the family that comes along with her.

An orphan who never found a family to take her in, Jessie Strong nearly succumbed to the pressures of a woman on her own in the wilds of Wyoming, but Nathan Strong rescued from a life of giving her body away for survival. When a handsome cowboy delivers the news of Nathan’s death, Jessie barely has time to grieve before the child she and her husband were to adopt shows up on her doorstep. Scared that the powers that be might change their mind upon discovering she’s now a widow, she jumps at the chance to pretend Chase is her husband. All goes well and they end up with two children, four-year-old Sarah and thirteen-year-old Gabe, a young man whom Sarah trusts and whom also desperately needs a family.

Not wanting to give his heart and risk hurt again, Chase is determined to make sure Jessie and the kids are prepared for the coming winter and then move on. But not only is it Jessie and all that she can offer him, family, love, hearth and home, but it’s young Sarah who immediately calls him Pa and the man Gabe is about to become who also call to Chase. They give him all he needs to feel and begin to love again, though he feels he doesn’t deserve it. Some of my favorite scenes are each time Chase picks Sarah up, whether she’s giggling or crying, and his reaction to her innocence and her unconditional love, especially because when we first meet her she barely speaks and is afraid of nearly everyone.

Chase does his best to guard his heart, Jessie does her best not to trap him, and when his secret is finally revealed and all seems lost, it’s the faith that each finds within their hearts that makes everything right. This is a lovely heart-warming story that pulls the emotions out of you and makes you wish for a simpler time when love really did conquor all and if you worked hard and believed, happily ever after wasn’t too far behind.

Grade: B

Summary:

Two hearts meant to be together;
One secret bound to rip them apart.

Chase Logan liked being a loner, a drifter, free and clear as amountain stream. But one look into Jessie Strong’s sky blue eyes and in the span of a heartbeat, he found himself agreeing to be her husband-and a father!

Jessie Strong knew it was all pretend. And only temporary. Just until the adoption went through for three-year-old Sarah. But the longer Chase stayed, the less she could imagine a long, lonely Wyoming winter without him. Times may be tough-supplies short and danger just outside the doorstep-but with the strength of the pioneer spirit and the warm glow of love in their herts, Chase and Jessie are determined to have a true family at last, no matter WHERE THE WIND BLOWS.

Read an excerpt.