Home on the Range by Ruth Logan Herne

Home on the Range by Ruth Logan Herne is the second in the Double S Ranch series by this talented writer.  Nick Stafford is the last son to have stayed with his father to run the ranch.  His father raised his motherless children with a hard hand.  Nick had been all set to best his father in the husband and father category as well as do a good job running the ranch.  Well that is until his wife left him for a flashier rodeo cowboy with not nearly as much money.  Nick had spent all his married life doting on his wife and children then one day she just left.  She just left her home in town--the one that Nick as purchased for her because she hated the ranch.  She just left her husband--who had always deferred to all her wishes even if it caused conflicts with his family.  But what Nick couldn't understand at all was she just left her beautiful little girls just like Nick's mother had left him and his brother.  How could she do that?  None the less Nick was raising the children as best he could and it seemed good enough for his youngest, 6 year old Dakota, but older Cheyenne was a different story all together.  Cheyenne was mad, defiant, and had neglected her school work until the school was threatening to fail her.  The school had recommended that Nick take her to a counselor, Dr. Elsa Andreas.  Nick had been ignoring the recommendation for months but now that she was failing, he could ignore it no longer.  Nick and the girls drive out to the woodsy bungalow half hidden by the hill it was built into which is where the doctor lived with her dog and her free flying talking bird. Though at first the girls both thought the doctor odd they both learned to appreciate her and Cheyenne was making good healthy strides in both her school work and her attitude towards life.  That is until her mother breezed back into her life and started trying to make her believe that life could go back to the way it was.

I loved the twists and turns of this new Christian love story.  It has a real plot and one that the writer can't quite figure out until the end.  Though it is the 2nd of a series it is easily understood by readers who have not read the first one.  It brings out the loss that children experience in divorce especially divorce that is handled by attempting to bring the children into arguments that the adults are facing.  This story tells about a how Nick and his family learn to live with the twists and turns of life without his wife--its been 3 years so it was time-- and the girls to live without their mother and learn to trust again the adults in their family and become well adjusted girls.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.