Review: On Lone Star Trail by Amanda Cabot

Sweet Romance with Depth

Amazon Description

A woman without a future. A man running from the past.
One enchanting place where broken dreams are mended.

If there's one thing Gillian Hodge never wants to see again, it's a man on a motorcycle. Her last encounter with one left her right hand crushed, ending her promising career as a concert pianist. Unsure about the next phase in her life, she heads to Rainbow's End Resort for some R&R when a sudden thunderstorm causes a motorcycle to crash right in front of her.

When TJ Benjamin's wife died, he lost more than his best friend; he lost his faith. He has spent the past year wandering the country on his motorcycle, trying not to think about the future. When he finds himself stranded with a busted bike and a reluctant rescuer, he has to wonder about God's sense of humor.

As these broken people collide, they find that a bright future is still ahead--it just might not be the one they imagined for themselves.

My Review

Gillian is running away from her past and her future—her career as a concert pianist, and her elderly father’s plans for her to meet and marry the “right” kind of man. Meaning a rich rising star, not an aimless drifter.

TJ Benjamin is running away from his past and his future—the death of his wife, and their plans and dreams. Meaning nothing to do with the God he now struggles to believe in, let alone follow.
They meet in unfortunate circumstances en route to Rainbow’s End Resort, and find both common interests and a mutual (if unwanted) attraction. On the surface, On Lone Star Trail is a pretty formulaic romance—boy who loves motorcycles meets girl who hates motorcycles, so one of them is going to have to have a radical change of opinion in order for the relationship to work. It’s a romance, so we all know how that’s going to go.

But underneath there is something deeper. Both Gillian and TJ find themselves drawn to the teenagers in the trailer park in Firefly Valley, one in particular. This adds a dose of 21st century reality and touches on issues not often found in Christian fiction—one of the reasons I enjoy Amanda Cabot’s novels. While the characters are definitely romance characters and the romance is the backbone of the story, it’s not everything, and that’s what I like about it.

On Lone Star Trail is the third Texas Crossroads book, following At Bluebonnet Lake and In Firefly Valley. Each can be read as a standalone novel.

You can find out more about Amanda Cabot at her website (https://www.sff.net/people/amanda.cabot/), and you can read the beginning of On Lone Star Trail here:

Thanks to Revell and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.