Into the Fire

I gotta admit every now and then I enjoy a sweet little romance. Call it a guilty pleasure if you like because I don’t indulge it very often—not necessarily because I don’t want to but because the good ones are hard to find.

Enter the Revell Book Tour for Sharon Gillenwater’s Jenna’s Cowboy. The title and cover give it away, but the delightful story about a young soldier returning from tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq to his parents’ farm, to help his recovering-from-surgery father harvest his cotton, takes a gentle but authentic look at the trials of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Speaking of book covers, there seems to be some reasonable research about readers preferring not to see full faces illustrated on the front of covers. Many readers, myself included, like to imagine the portraits of characters in the story without their pictures being provided to perhaps contrast one’s mental images. In this case I’ll make an exception. The illustration of Nate Langley captures the essence of the character perfectly.

Big city people usually don’t understand the ties that bind together generations of farming and ranching families and their communities. As huge conglomerates buy up family farms in trouble across this nation, the traditional family units that inherit and pass on these farms and ranches begin to disappear, and it’s a real loss in so many ways. This old tradition is just one more reason why Jenna’s Cowboy tells a touching tale. The bonds of family are featured and demonstrated in the solid Christian values of the Callahans and Langleys.

Nate Langley returns to his small hometown with a Silver Star and a Purple Heart and the admiration of nearly everyone including his first and only love, Jenna Callahan Colby, now divorced and the mother of a two year old boy. Facing recurring nightmares which prevent Nate from soothing sleep and much needed rest, every backfire and loud noise sends him looking for cover and pumps adrenaline through his system. Mini memory black-outs and a terrifying fear of fire find him muscling through crowds and not remembering how he arrived at his location.

Dub Callahan owns the huge cattle ranch where Nate worked as a kid and fell in love with Dub’s daughter Jenna while being best friends with Chance, one of her brothers. Nate needs a part time job to provide an income while he helps out his dad at the farm, so he asks Dub if he will hire him to return to the role of the job he loved: being a cowboy. Many years before Dub made it clear to Nate that he expected someone of more prominence to romance his daughter, a decision Dub’s come to regret.

Jenna is a wounded divorcée, a rancher at heart, a single mother who needs and appreciates the love and support of her family. When she meets up with Nate over a flat tire, the old attraction sparks meaningful memories and ignites the hint of hope.

Jenna’s Cowboy takes the reader through the love story of two people who must learn how to heal and the inspiration they provide for each other to find a way with God’s help. These are Christian people who live their faith, and Sharon tells their stories with an honesty, respect, and sweetness which avoids the triteness that can often arise in this kind of simple romance.

Well told and well done.

Available January 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Lord, I pray your continued blessing on Sharon for her heart after you. I ask that you would give her open doors for the stories you’ve given her to tell. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.