Picnic in Someday Valley

With the satisfying second Honey Creek romance, Thomas further develops two relations begun in Breakfast at the Honey Creek Café and adds several appealing new characters and story lines. Returning readers will enjoy revisiting Pecos Smith—a kind, hardworking 20-year-old, now married to his pregnant childhood friend, Kerri, but still unsure of where their relationship stands—and becoming reacquainted with ambitious Mayor Piper Mackenzie and her maybe-boyfriend, the equally career-focused Texas Ranger Colby McBride, though this time the drama revolves around their ineffectual communication skills, which will leave many frustrated. New subplots include a developing friendship between “homely” widower Jesse Keaton, a farmer raising three kids, and the town baker, Adalee Summers. Thomas also makes time for the budding romance between two inhabitants of nearby Someday Valley: Marcie Latimer, a down-on-her-luck musician living in a trailer park, and reclusive cowboy Brand Rodgers. While the main plot hinges loosely on a cartoonishly sadistic stranger’s obsession with Marcie, it’s the novel’s patchwork of tender, slow-building relationships between quirky, caring characters that keeps the pages turning. Readers will be pleased. Agent: Gail Fortune, the Talbot Fortune Agency. (May)