Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Heartbreak Trail {a Kregel Blog Tour review}

I love Susan K. Marlow and her Circle C books.

Every book makes me enjoy Andi more.  Heartbreak Trail is the second title in the Circle C Milestones series.  This series features a teenaged Andi, and having read so many of the Beginnings books (where Andi was six) and the Adventures books (where Andi was twelve), it is just a delight to see what a wonderful young woman she is becoming.

From the publisher:
Andrea Carter can ride, rope, and cut out cattle with the best of her brothers' ranch hands. Yet, her mother has always held the family's youngest daughter back from fully participating in ranch activities.

With the approach of her fifteenth birthday, even the ranch boss, big brother Chad, can't deny that his baby sister is better at ranch skills than some of his cowhands. When Andi announces that her quinceañera birthday wish is to join the upcoming cattle drive, her family is stunned. But after further discussion and multiple newspaper clippings about spirited women who balked at society's expectations, even Mother agrees that the only way to get this cattle-drive notion out of Andi's head is by letting her and her cousin Levi go along as Cook's helpers. Andi is elated. What can go wrong on a two-week drive to Los Angeles?

Andi quickly discovers that a cattle drive is a dirty, dangerous business with little sleep and the same food day after day. Between late nights, dust, mosquitos, and an abrasive cowhand trying to win Andi's attention, it is definitely not a holiday. Andi grimly determines she will stick it out. When a river crossing goes wrong and Chad is shot in a gunfight with suspicious men who have been shadowing the herd, Mitch the trail boss finds himself dangerously shorthanded. Andi and Levi can no longer just give Cook a hand. It's time to pitch in and help Mitch get their cattle to market--any way they can.

My thoughts:


Andi is always getting into crazy situations, and this book is certainly no different.  She's dreamed of going on a cattle drive forever, and in this book she gets the chance.  It is fabulous to see her buck up and keep going, even when things are monotonous, and then when it gets dangerous she has to see if she really does have what it takes.

Trina (age 9) isn't quite old enough for this series, but I love that these are books I'll be able to hand off to her in another couple of years.  Andi is impulsive, she gets into scrapes because she just doesn't think.  In this book especially, she grows from the experiences.

Susan Marlow keeps the action going, and she really draws you into the story.

I can't wait for the next book!



Disclaimer:  I received this book through Kregel Blog Tours.  No other compensation was received.  All opinions expressed in this review are my own.   

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