A Hopeful Heart

This week, the



Christian Fiction Blog Alliance



is introducing



A Hopeful Heart Bethany House (June 1, 2010)



byKim Vogel Sawyer





ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kim Vogel Sawyer is the author of fifteen novels, including several CBA and ECPA bestsellers. Her books have won the ACFW Book of the Year Award, the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, and the Inspirational Readers Choice Award. Kim is active in her church, where she leads women's fellowship and participates in both voice and bell choirs. In her spare time, she enjoys drama, quilting, and calligraphy. Kim and her husband, Don, reside in central Kansas, and have three daughters and six grandchildren.





ABOUT THE BOOK

Dowryless and desperate, Tressa Neill applies to the inaugural class of Wyatt Herdsman School in Barnett, Kansas, in 1888. The school's one-of-a-kind program teaches young women from the East the skills needed to become a rancher--or the wife of one.



Shy and small for her twenty-two years, Tressa is convinced she'll never have what it takes to survive Hattie Wyatt's hands-on instruction in skills such as milking a cow, branding a calf, riding a horse, and cooking up a mess of grub for hungry ranch hands. But what other options does she have?



Abel Samms wants nothing to do with the group of potential brides his neighbor brought to town. He was smitten with an eastern girl once--and he got his heart broken. But there's something about quiet Tressa and her bumbling ways that makes him take notice.



When Tressa's life is endangered, will Abel risk his own life--and his heart--to help this eastern girl?



If you would like to read the first chapter of A Hopeful Heart, go HERE

A Hopeful Heart by Kim Vogel Sawyer is a delightful romance full of faith and charm. Tressa Neill is one of the first students at Hattie Wyatt's herdsman school for girls. Rejected by her aunt and uncle, she wants to learn how to be a good wife on a ranch in hopes of finding a husband, just like the rest of the women in the school. Abel Samms doesn't have much faith in the school or the women, he just wants to figure out who has been rustling his cattle in such quantities that he's being forced to consider selling his ranch to his wealthy neighbor. Sawyer is a talented writer, and I've read several of her other books, but this may just be her best one yet. I absolutely adored this novel! Tressa is a delightful heroine who is initially unsure of herself but learns from Hattie to learn to trust herself and the Lord. I love books like this where the reader knows from the first page that everything is going to end happily, but the journey there is so much fun. Sawyer has created a vibrant group of characters here, and I hope that the Wyatt Herdsman School isn't through. There are more stories to be told! If you're looking for a sweet romance, you couldn't do any better than this book.