Andee S. Davis

I have had the pleasure of reading Debbie Macomber’s Dakota Trilogy before, borrowing the books from the library.  Now that I have acquired my own copies, I’m rereading.  Though definitely not in the sweet category, with several scenes of unmarried characters in bed together, Debbie’s three books will remain part of my own personal library.  Aside from the sensuality, Debbie writes about people with old-fashioned vaues who struggle through the years of low farm prices in a tiny community that depends on the surrounding farms for its survival.  Long after I read them the first time, Ms. Macomber’s cast of characters returned to my memory to entertain me.

When Emmaline Bradford reaches the Kansas prairies where she is to wed Geoffery Garret, nothing is going according to plan.  Her fiancé had promised to send for her soon, but the time she waited in England had stretched to five years, with no word from her intended.  Now, forced by her father to travel to America, she is facing marriage to a near-stranger in a strange land, and her heart isn’t in it.  What had happened to the sweet young man who’d courted her?  Emmaline refuses to marry him and resolves to return to England, but is forced to wait until the spring.

Geoffery Garret has spent the last five years preparing his Kansas sheep ranch for the arrival of his betrothed, but the woman who steps off the train won’t have him.  Having limiting his correspondences to only her father at his advice, he realizes they’ve meanwhile become strangers.  The demands of his ranch in a year of drought just add to the misunderstandings, and he can feel his dreams for Emmaline and himself slipping away. 

This was one of those books that I had to finish once I started, and the chapters flew by unnoticed.  Kim Vogel Sawyer has created a compelling plot and memorable characters.  Woven throughout the story is a thread of yielding, of giving up our own stubborn resolve to the Lord for His remaking into peace and joy.