A Constant Love

The brutal realities of 1880s Wyoming frontier life undergird this action-packed series opener from Peterson (A Truth Revealed). Charlotte Aldrich, 21, bitterly resists her father’s efforts to marry her off to lawyer Lewis Bradley—she’s long been in love with her brother’s best friend, Micah Hamilton, who still sees her as a little sister. After Charlotte’s father and brother freeze to death in a snowstorm, Charlotte’s consumed by guilt, and Micah’s father, who found the pair, kills himself. Both families keep the suicide a secret to avoid the community’s judgment, and Micah sinks into a deep depression, rejecting God and numbing the pain with alcohol. A year later, Charlotte’s mother recruits a still-miserable Micah to help out on their ranch, and as he spends more time with Charlotte, he begins to heal and to see her in a new light. But trouble still lurks in the form of Lewis Bradley, who’s increasingly determined to marry Charlotte, even if it means getting Micah out of the way first. The propulsive plot surges along as Peterson throws hurdles and hardships into her protagonists’ way, though wooden exposition flattens their characterizations (following her father’s death, Charlotte bears “the truth and guilt alone”; “[after] how she’d treated [him], she told herself she didn’t deserve to be happy”). Still, there’s enough drama here to keep readers turning pages. (Mar.)