cover image Crybaby Ranch

Crybaby Ranch

Tina Welling, . . NAL Accent, $14 (307pp) ISBN 978-0-451-22287-9

Suzannah Perry, the narrator of Welling’s life-affirming debut, is a junior high English teacher who is stuck in an unhappy marriage and struggling with the realization that her mother has Alzheimer’s. After years of putting up with her husband’s passive-aggressive behavior, Suzannah finally decides to leave him and pursue her dream of turning her jewelry-making hobby into a vocation. To that end, she buys a small piece of land and a crumbling cabin from Bo Garrett, a cowboy with his own artistic goals and his own personal issues holding him back. Suzannah begins to fall for him, but she’s unable to fully pursue the relationship as she tries to reconnect with her stepson, help her father take care of her increasingly failing mother and find emotional stability as she moves on from her 17-year marriage. Suzannah’s happy ending is a well-earned one that readers of inspirational fiction will appreciate. (Jan.)