Calico Canyon

CALICO CANYON (fun title—it rolls off the tounge…) was a Christy Award finalist and I can totally see why.  The message of this story was very sweet.  Here is another book where I wasn’t sure if I could like it because of the five wild and crazy boys, but (like the little girls in PETTICOAT RANCH) they won my heart and I loved this story.

Book Rating:  Up All Night’er

This book follows right after PETTICOAT RANCH and includes the characters from that story quite a bit.  If I thought I was attached to those characters then, I grew to really love them after this book.

Grace Calhoun is the school teacher for Mosqueros, TX and you first meet her in the previous book.  This is her story.  As with PETTICOAT RANCH, this one is filled with dirt (and I mean these people are living on a dirt floor for a while…) and mean, mean bad guys and quite a bit of sadness.  Grace has had a terrible youth (in fact, she is still a youth—she’s only seventeen!  I would have liked her a little older, but that’s just me…) and her past has caught up with her.  But “God is faithful” and protects her by leading her into the life of the very man who just got her fired from her teaching job!  Who would have known that it would have been such a blessing to her?  Well, God did!

Daniel Reeves has five young boys and no wife.  They are surviving well enough, but a cave is a poor excuse for a house.  One fateful night when he returns from town, he finds poor Grace in his wagon, nearly frozen to death.  How in the world did she get there?  (You’ll just have to read to find out!)  He saves her life (so romantic!) and that’s where all the fun and adventure begins!

Daniel is a rough on the outside, but that’s only to protect his sweet and gentle heart.  I really enjoyed his character a lot.  His relationship with Grace is sweet and develops nicely throughout the book.  But I really have to say, I could have actually used a bit more romance here, just as in PETTICOAT RANCH.

Connealy has a great writing style.  It took me a while to get used to it, because it really is quite different from say Gist or Witemeyer.  But I think she really captures people’s one-on-one communications very well, and she will get you smiling a lot as you read.

I’m a’bettin’ your gonna like this’n. *teehee *

Happy Reading!
Buy it!  (If you want Calico Canyon you may be able to get it from Mary's own website...I have a link here for the trilogy from amazon.com, but I can't find the book by itself...just FYI)