We’re reading our way across America…one romance at a time.

Iowa: Making Waves by Lorna Seilstad (Lake Manawa #1)

The Great American Midwest, aka America’s Breadbasket, aka the Grain Belt, aka Flyover Country, is lamentably underrepresented when it comes to mainstream fiction, most especially romance. Oh, sure, Texas gets a lot of love, and there are about a zillion procedurals set in Chicago. Other exceptions—Dorothy Garlock, LaVyrle Spencer—also exist. But your typical Midwest-set novel tends to be either a) the story of an emotionally damaged, usually alcoholic law enforcement officer combating the demons of his/her past while investigating a corpse that has turned up in some cornfield or other or b) an inspirational novel.

And looking at the cover of Lorna Seilstad’s charming Making Waves, which features a tiny-waisted, disheveled, comically alarmed-looking blonde in period array standing on a dock; well, you can pretty well guess that neither cornfields nor corpses figure particularly heavily in this one.

[I have no problem with this...]

What first comes to mind at the mention of the term, “frontier romance?” The endless expanse of wildflower meadows and wagon trains filled with hopeful homesteaders on their way to a heartwarming happily ever after of an inspirational romance like Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly? A young widow and widower finding that love can bloom—again—even in the most unlikely of places? That’d fit. Or how about a cattle drive, staffed by the desperate and broken in body and spirit, perhaps along the lines of Maggie Osborne’s The Best Man? Also a perfect fit.

Maybe it’s the mix of people who might never have had a chance to meet, much less make a life together, if they weren’t headed for the very edges of the known world. From sweet to erotic, frontier romances truly have something for everyone, and the uncertainty of leaving behind all that is familiar for the chance at something better strikes a universal chord. This theme is a classic fit for westerns, to be sure, but also lends itself beautifully to other settings.

[Love: The Final Frontier...]

Jillian Hart
Montana Dreams
Love Inspired / August 21, 2012 / $5.75 print/$4.24 digital

Bumping into her ex-fiancé shatters Millie Wilson all over again. Now that she’s back in Montana to care for her dying father, her real burden is the secret she’s never divulged to Hunter McKaslin.

Millie can’t blame Hunter for his anger upon learning he’s a father. He’s never gotten over opening his heart, only to have it broken. Yet Millie senses a new goodness in Hunter. Finding their lost dreams now seems possible—if forgiveness and trust can find a place in this fresh start.

Millie Wilson left her boyfriend Hunter ten years earlier because he told her that he’d never marry her and that he’d rather “jump off a cliff” than have kids. He didn’t know then that she was pregnant with his son, and Millie never told him.

[Awkward!...]

I forget just where I picked up this bit of literary wisdom, but it’s said there are two plots that cover just about every story: “Somebody goes on a journey” and “A stranger comes to town.” In Barbara Cameron’s Quilts of Lancaster County series, though, you get both.

Okay, technically, Jenny King isn’t a complete stranger to the Amish when she shows up at her grandmother’s house in the opening pages of A Time to Love, but she might as well be. Her father had long ago broken away from the faith, and she hasn’t even visited in years. That’s still long enough for Matthew Bontrager—the widower who fell in love with Jenny during her last visit to Lancaster County, when they were both teenagers—to be filled with doubt about whether their relationship could possibly work... doubts she, too, fights to overcome as she adjusts to her new life.

[Why’s this guy reading Amish romances?...]

Inspirational romances are like hot chocolate on a rainy winter day. They’re sweet, uplifting love stories about characters who are trying to find true love, raise happy families, and live a good life. Even though the genre is rooted in Christianity, they allow room for characters who doubt and for characters who sin. What they don’t allow room for is graphic sex or violence, which is why I love them. When I pick one up, I know I’m going to read something that will warm my heart and touch my soul. Some of the earliest inspirational novels were written by women during the nineteenth century when faith-based fiction was not just a sub-genre—it was the norm. These stories are true historical fiction, and some of them are now available for free as part of Project Gutenberg.

[Sounds like a win/win situation...]