CFBA: Valley Of Dreams by Lauraine Snelling

Song Stuck on the Brain: Take a Chance on Me by ABBA

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing:




Valley of Dreams

Bethany House (November 1, 2011)


by


Lauraine Snelling

MY TAKE:

Have you ever read a book that was really good, so good that your attention was captivated and you didn't want to put the book down? Of course you have. Have you ever had a book like that make you antsy? As in, the story is progressing quickly, but I'm running out of pages and how in the world is this all going to wrap itself up in so few pages?

Yep. You know what I'm talking about. Does it make you like the book any less? NO. At least, not for me. A great story is a great story, and a great sequel just means you get to enjoy your literary friends a little longer. I knew going into Valley of Dreams that it was the first book in a series. But I wasn't expecting the ending to feel like a beginning.

Cassie's story is well researched and well written. Her life as a trick rider is captivating and colorful. Experiencing her life turned upside down and then her journey to find a new life is just as entertaining. I love her little family of misfits, especially the animals. And I loved the teasing hint of a romance to come. Which man will she choose? But the novel ends just as the most important question is ready to be answered. Ready - but not shared.

Talk about exciting and frustrating. I immediately went to the author's website to see when the sequel would be released, but it's too early apparently to list that information. So now, my poor mind is spinning with anticipation and just a little frustration.

Is it worth the read? Absolutely, just be prepared to be hooked and to wait. Patience may be a virtue, but it's one that's hard earned.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Cassie Lockwood's mother died when she was little, so Cassie traveled with her father's Wild West Show and became an amazingly skillful trick rider, likened by some to the famous Annie Oakley. When her father died, she continued to work with the show, having nowhere else to go.

Now Cassie has discovered that "Uncle" Jason, the show's manager, has driven the show into debt, and he's absconded with what little money was left. Devastated, Cassie decides to try to find the hidden valley where here father had dreamed of putting down roots. She has only one clue. She needs to find three huge stones that look like fingers raised in a giant hand. With Chief, a Sioux Indian who's been with the show for twenty years, and Micah, the head wrangler, she leaves both the show and a bundle of heartache behind and begins a wild and daring adventure.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Valley of Dreams, go HERE.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Award-winning and best selling author Lauraine Snelling began living her dream to be a writer with her first published book for young adult readers, Tragedy on the Toutle, in 1982. She has since continued writing more horse books for young girls, adding historical and contemporary fiction and nonfiction for adults and young readers to her repertoire. All told, she has up to sixty books published.

Shown in her contemporary romances and women’s fiction, a hallmark of Lauraine’s style is writing about real issues of forgiveness, loss, domestic violence, and cancer within a compelling story. Her work has been translated into Norwegian, Danish, and German, and she has won the Silver Angel Award for An Untamed Land and a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart for Song of Laughter.

As a most sought after speaker, Lauraine encourages others to find their gifts and live their lives with humor and joy. Her readers clamor for more books more often, and Lauraine would like to comply ... if only her paintbrushes and easel didn’t call quite so loudly.

Lauraine and her husband, Wayne, have two grown sons, and live in the Tehachapi Mountains with a cockatiel named Bidley, and a watchdog Basset named Winston. They love to travel, most especially in their forty-foot motor coach, which they affectionately deem “a work in progress”.