Valley of Dreams by Lauraine Snelling - REVIEWED

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Valley of Dreams
Bethany House (November 1, 2011)
by
Lauraine Snelling



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Award-winning and best selling author Lauraine Snelling began living her dream to be a writer with her first published book for young adult readers, Tragedy on the Toutle, in 1982. She has since continued writing more horse books for young girls, adding historical and contemporary fiction and nonfiction for adults and young readers to her repertoire. All told, she has up to sixty books published.



Shown in her contemporary romances and women’s fiction, a hallmark of Lauraine’s style is writing about real issues of forgiveness, loss, domestic violence, and cancer within a compelling story. Her work has been translated into Norwegian, Danish, and German, and she has won the Silver Angel Award for An Untamed Land and a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart for Song of Laughter.



As a most sought after speaker, Lauraine encourages others to find their gifts and live their lives with humor and joy. Her readers clamor for more books more often, and Lauraine would like to comply ... if only her paintbrushes and easel didn’t call quite so loudly.



Lauraine and her husband, Wayne, have two grown sons, and live in the Tehachapi Mountains with a cockatiel named Bidley, and a watchdog Basset named Winston. They love to travel, most especially in their forty-foot motor coach, which they affectionately deem “a work in progress”.



ABOUT THE BOOK

Addy Lockwood's mother died when she was little, so Addy traveled with her father's Wild West Show and became an amazingly skillful trick rider, likened by some to the famous Annie Oakley. When her father died, she continued to work with the show, having nowhere else to go.



Now Addy has discovered that "Uncle" Jason, the show's manager, has driven the show into debt, and he's absconded with what little money was left. Devastated, Addy decides to try to find the hidden valley where here father had dreamed of putting down roots. She has only one clue. She needs to find three huge stones that look like fingers raised in a giant hand. With Chief, a Sioux Indian who's been with the show for twenty years, and Micah, the head wrangler, she leaves both the show and a bundle of heartache behind and begins a wild and daring adventure.

My Thoughts:

OH YAY!!! I have loved Lauraine Snelling since I first read her Red River of the North series! As a matter of fact, those books are some of the most tattered in my collection, because I've read them numerous times, and I've shared them with friends and family galore! And now, I know that I will have another tattered series of books on my shelf! I am so excited!

Valleyof Dreams is the first in the Wild West Wind series and it reminds me a great deal of that first series I fell in love with years ago. There are hardships, relationships, trial and struggles galore, and the characters just weave themselves into your heart and mind so that you KNOW them! I love it when that happens in fiction. Snelling realistically displays all of the nuances of Cassie's life and so that you feel what she feels - whether it's sadness, fear or a longing for a place to call home - you are THERE with Cassie!

I am REALLY excited about this series! I was transported by the characters and setting just as realistically as I was by the Red River of the North Series! I've read other books in other series, and they're all good, but this...well, I've got another series to collect and read to tatters! I love it when that happens!! You will too!


If you would like to read the first chapter of Valley of Dreams, go HERE.