On Second Thought - - Reason to Believe

Reason to Believe

By Kathleen Eagle

Publisher: Bell Bridge Books

Release Date: July 16, 2013

(originally published by Avon in 1995)

Clara Whiting and Ben Pipestone meet when she comes to the reservation to interview his father, Dewey Pipestone, a holy man of the Lakota Sioux. Despite the vast differences between them—cultural, experiential, and temperamental—the two fall in love and are married. Their marriage endures for twelve years through the worst of Ben’s alcoholism. Ironically, it is when Ben is in a treatment program which encourages his honesty that he reveals the truth about a brief, drunken affair that the marriage receives a destructive blow. The couple separates when their only child, a daughter (Anna) is eleven. Two years later, Anna is in trouble, mouthing off at school, shoplifting, and drinking. Clara and Ben recognize that they must work together to help their daughter. With this common goal, they agree to Anna’s plea that the three of them join Ben’s family in the Big Foot Memorial Ride, a grueling two-week journey on horseback that traces the path taken by their ancestors, ending at the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre.

The demanding ride through the Dakotas in December challenges the bodies, minds, and spirits of those who participate. Clara and Ben are forced to examine themselves in ways that would have been unlikely in ordinary circumstances. Clara, who defied her family to marry Ben, must come to terms with her inability to fix everything and her determination to keep the imperfections from showing. She could not prevent Ben’s alcoholic binges, and she cannot protect Anna from Anna’s own bad choices or from the bigotry of racists. She knows that she still loves Ben, but can she rebuild the trust that his infidelity shattered? Ben is plagued by the conviction that he is unworthy of his father’s belief in him and of his wife and daughter’s love for him. He has fought for his sobriety tenaciously, but his spiritual struggles are ongoing. And his self-recrimination over his failures as a son, a husband, and a father haunt him. Can he reclaim what he has lost? Will Anna’s love for her parents and her dream of a reunited family and Dewey’s wisdom and hopes for a successor to continue the beliefs of his people help Clara and Ben to find their way back? The reader is pulled into this story that has dimensional reality and substance.

This novel is my favorite of Kathleen Eagle’s books. I reread it every couple of years, and I rejoiced when Bell Bridge Books made it available in digital format. It is both a deeply emotional reunion story and a powerful, detailed account of an actual event. Eagle never shies from tackling the tough stuff, and in this novel she uses alcoholism, adultery, teen rebellion, and spiritual struggles to create a world where flawed characters fight to find healing, hope, and love despite their failures. Her own experience as a former teacher in a reservation school and as a white woman married to a Lakota saturate the story with authenticity. This book is one of those romance novels that surpasses any limitations of genre fiction. It touches the reader’s heart and challenges the reader to ponder important questions. Kathleen Eagle has given us many gems. I think this one is her best. I highly recommend it.

 ~Janga

Guest Review - Saturday Shorts

One Brave Cowboy 
By Kathleen Eagle 
Publisher: Harlequin (Harlequin Special Edition) 
Release Date: September 20, 2011

His name is Cougar. Just Cougar. He’s the latest of Kathleen Eagle’s strong, stoic Indian cowboys who need love’s healing touch. Cougar is a former soldier recently released from a VA hospital where horse therapy helped him recover from physical and psychological wounds of war. At the suggestion of his friend Sergeant Mary Tutan, he’s visiting the Double D Wild Horse Sanctuary in South Dakota to check out the wild horse training competition run by Sally Drexler White Horse.

Cougar meets schoolteacher Celia Banyon when he almost runs down her young son Mark. He is drawn to both mother and son, two more wounded warriors even though their battleground has been a domestic one. Cougar and Celia move from friendship to love, and Cougar helps Mark bond with a horse. The breakthrough when Cougar and Celia trust one another enough to admit their love is quieter but no less powerful than the breakthrough when Mark, who has been deaf and mute since a horrific accident, names his horse Flyboy.

These are not showy characters, but their vulnerabilities and their strengths make them deeply human. They survive pain, betrayal, and broken dreams to discover a love strong enough to heal their wounds. My only disappointment in this book was that it ended too soon, making the HEA feel a bit rushed. Some of the best contemporary romances being written are category romance, and Kathleen Eagle’s books are in that company. I recommend not only One Brave Cowboy but also the other books in the series: In Care of Sam Beaudry; One Cowboy, One Christmas; Cool Hand Hank; Once a Father; and Cowboy, Take Me Away.


All That Remains
By Janice Kay Johnson
Publisher: Harlequin (Harlequin Superromance)
Release Date: October 4, 2011

Wren Fraser is on the run, hoping to find a safe place with her best friend from college, when she’s caught in a flash flood. Her car runs off the road, and she takes sanctuary in an abandoned house. She’s alone in an empty house somewhere in Arkansas, with flood waters rising and labor pains getting stronger and closer together. Retreating to the attic, she hangs a white sheet out the window and hopes help will come.

Police Detective Alec Harper has spent three days rescuing stranded people in a borrowed aluminum fishing boat. He almost skips the old Maynard house because he knows the owner is in a nursing home but decides to check it out on the chance that someone has taken shelter there. He sees the white sheet. He knows there is no way the heavily pregnant woman can make it to the boat, and so when he learns she’s in labor, he joins her in the attic and delivers her baby.

The intimacy created by this act is intensified as their isolation continues. Wren tells Alec about the father of her child, the abusive boyfriend from whom she is running, and Alec tells her that he and his ex-wife have two daughters. By the time they are rescued after several days in survivalist mode, a bond has formed between the two. When Wren finds out that her friend no longer lives in Saddler’s Mill, Alec invites her to be his guest until her identification and credit cards can be replaced. With the connection that has already been created between Wren and Alec, it’s no surprise that the two fall in love. But Wren is determined to prove she can be independent of any man, and Alec is afraid of letting anyone inside the walls he’s built to protect himself from more losses. They can build a life together only of Wren overcomes her pride and Alec overcomes his fears.

Janice Kay Johnson has been an autobuy author for me since I read her Patton’s Daughters series in 1999. I have learned that I can count on her books to give me well-developed characters with depth who confront credible challenges and are changed by their experiences. All That Remains is vintage Johnson, and I highly recommend it.

~Janga