Thunder on the Plains

Veteran western romance author Bittner (Outlaw Hearts) pairs a fabulously wealthy heiress with an adventurous plains scout on a tense and twisting epic journey that will leave readers cheering. In the mid-19th century, 15-year-old Sunny Landers is being molded by her tycoon father to take over his business, and that means joining him on a trip from Omaha to the Rockies to survey the possibility of building a transcontinental railroad. She finds an untamed country that’s easy to love—and meets handsome Colt Travis, the orphaned son of a Texan missionary and his Cherokee wife. Though Colt shares her attraction, they both understand that they are too different for a successful union. While Sunny works to carry out her father’s dream of a transcontinental railroad despite resistance from within her family and years of civil war, Colt must navigate his love of the land and his complex heritage as the world around him changes and duty conflicts with friendship. The carefully woven story stumbles only when the characters stop behaving sensibly in order to expand the plot. Agent: Maura Kye-Casella, Don Congdon Associates. (Oct.)