Waiting for Spring

Prolific romance novelist Cabot (Summer of Promise) continues the Westward Winds series with the story of Charlotte Harding, a widow who becomes a successful dressmaker in frontier Cheyenne, Wyo., to support herself and her young son and keep her distance from a painful and dangerous past. One of Charlotte’s customers, Miriam Taggert, is being pursued by cattle baron and aspiring politician Barrett Landry. Barrett finds himself drawn to the dressmaker; the romance grows complicated, the harshness of a Wyoming winter affects Barrett, and Charlotte’s past comes out, endangering her and her son. Cabot is a great technician, skilled at dialogue and romantic chemistry. Yet the plotting doesn’t cohere, and the shift between the romance and danger elements can be grinding. Worse, the villain is the least credible of the characters. Fans of Christian fiction won’t find much religion here, but they will get a well-written romance with well-drawn main—and flawed—characters along with glimpses of the real history of a Western frontier city. (Jan.)