The Wedding Ranch

A tender, thoughtful romance about two lost souls who find each other and are forced to confront the past in order to embrace true love.

Love, loss, second chances and small-town living are hallmarks of Nancy Naigle’s fiction. In The Wedding Ranch, prolonged grief is added to the mix producing a tenderly drawn romance about two strangers, both coping with heartbreak, who are very leery about love.

 

Just when it appears as though Lorri Walker and her husband have turned the corner--after he’d gone astray in their marriage--he suddenly leaves her for another woman. Lorri uproots herself and a giant Mastiff dog--a present from her ex--from their home in Raleigh, N.C. and moves a few hours away to Mill Creek Highlands, a quaint small town, where she believes she can make a fresh start and grow her graphic design business. There, she meets rancher, Ryder Bolt, a grief-stricken widower who, after seven years, is still struggling with the tragic loss of his wife and son. Tending to the demands of his family’s sprawling property and proudly assisting his niece and nephew as they expand the reach of The Wedding Ranch--a popular venue for authentic farm weddings--keeps him very busy.

 When Lorri and Ryder cross paths, a good-natured friendship begins to develop. But will their respective dark pasts drive a wedge between them? And are they willing to risk their troubled, wounded hearts for something more?

 

Naigle (The Shell Collector) is a sensible, compassionate storyteller who once again demonstrates a keen understanding for--and deep sensitivity toward--the complexities of true romance and the healing power of forgiveness and love.

 

 

The Wedding Ranch by Nancy Naigle

St. Martin’s Griffin, $16.99 paperback, 352 pages, 9781250794130

Publishing Date: December 6, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (January 13, 2023), link HERE

The Frederick Sisters Are Living the Dream

A quirky, bittersweet story about three middle-aged sisters faced with caregiving issues that force them to re-evaluate their places in the world.

 

Exasperating family dramas take center stage in The Frederick Sisters Are Living the Dream, a dynamic, episodic first novel by Jeannie Zusy.

 

Three middle-aged sisters are bonded by family history: Betsy (aka ‘Bets’) the oldest, is a single, independent, free spirit who runs a successful surfing school in California. Ginny, the middle sister, lives in Maryland. The 56-year-old, sugar-craving diabetic--and retired high-school janitor--reads and writes at a third-grade level.  However, her intellectual disability doesn’t hinder her from conniving to get what she wants. And Maggie, the youngest--a successful storyboard artist for TV commercials--is a dutiful, New York State mother of two, young-adult sons who is separated from her husband.

 

When Ginny is hospitalized after over-indulging in too much sugary Jell-O, Maggie sets off to her rescue. The girls’ parents are deceased, but they left ample finances to provide for Ginny’s care and well-being. When Maggie relocates Ginny--under duress--to a nursing home in Westchester County, New York, her good intentions are met with opposition. Older sister Betsy wants absolutely no part of--or say in--Ginny’s caretaking. And Ginny refuses to live amongst “old people.” Along the way, Maggie is caught in the middle, forced to juggle familial demands as she struggles to manage her own mid-life crisis, as well Ginny’s and Betsy’s—all three women are at personal crossroads.

 

Zusy’s funny, bittersweet story is rife with big scenes where Maggie’s witty, first-person narrative point-of-view adds levity to serious, tender themes about family, sisterhood, commitment, caregiving and love.

 

The Frederick Sisters Are Living the Dream by Jeannie Zusy

Atria Books, $27.00 hardcover, 320 pages, 9781982185381

Publishing Date: September 20, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (September 23, 2022), link HERE