Over the Moon at the Big Lizard Diner

When eight-year-old Sydney leaves Denver to spend the summer in Mexico with her estranged father, Geoff, at the start of this third novel in Wingate's Texas Hill Country series, her mother, divorced paleontologist Lindsey Attwood, doesn't quite know what to do with herself. At the behest of her twin sister, Laura, and girlfriend Collie Collins (the protagonist of the series' first novel, Texas Cooking ), Lindsey finds herself in San Saline, Tex., helping solve a mystery of missing dinosaur tracks on a local ranch while posing as a member of a horse psychology class. Lindsey falls for veterinarian-turned-cowboy Zach Truitt, and as their romance blooms, she wrestles with the problems that consume her: faith, fear and doubts about her ability to love again. Of course, in the end, the horse psychology class actually teaches Lindsey a thing or two—she conquers her fear of horses, makes peace with her ex-husband, solves the dinosaur case and learns to both accept and revel in her new relationship. Wingate attempts to mesh mystery with romance, but with slapdash writing and flat characters, her latest novel comes up short of her previous books' sincerity and warmth. Agent, Claudia Cross. (Nov.)