A few years ago, Harlequin's Love Inspired line started running multi-month continuities. For its regular line, the continuity would run from July to December, and for the Love Inspired Suspense line, the continuity would run from January to June. There is usually one book that is published each month for the continuity, resulting in six episodes. A mystery is also spread out throughout the books, which is resolved in the final installment. In the meantime, a person following the continuity will read about the romances of six different couples, where each couple is featured in their own book/episode. The most recent offering for the regular line is titled "Big Sky Centennial," which is based on the hundredth year celebrations of Jasper Gulch, Montana.
Harlequin offered a sneak peek into the series by offering a free novella for Kindle, titled, "Montana Reunion," which is also written by Valerie Hansen, the author of the first book in the Big Sky Centennial continuity. It has been on Amazon since July, and is likely a marketing tool for attracting attention for the series. I am wondering if its status will change by the end of the year, because this is the last month for the continuity.
When I first saw the Kindle offering, I thought that Harlequin was actually offering the first book of the series online, so when I was at Walmart in August checking out the Love Inspired titles, I was puzzled about the cover for, "Her Montana Cowboy," which was July's offering. I knew that there were two people on the cover for, "Montana Reunion," but there was only one extremely handsome cowboy on the book that I was staring at in the store. After checking on Wifi, I realized that they were two entirely separate books, both written by Valerie Hansen. Walmart had just brought back its marketing tool of buying three Harlequin books for $15, versus $6.75 for one (yes, we have higher prices in Canada), and besides having "Her Montana Cowboy," on the shelf, there was also August's "Her Montana Sweetheart," (the second installment) by Ruth Logan Herne available. That was the moment when I decided that I would swallow the bait and start buying the books for the continuity. That impulsive decision to buy three books at once was helped along by the fact that I was going to be stranded on a campground with no transportation for the following six days. The funny thing is that I actually read the third book which was unrelated to the series while I was stuck on the campground, and did not get around reading any of the Big Sky books until much later. In fact, I just finished reading, "Her Montana Cowboy," a few days ago.
The handsome cowboy on the cover of "Her Montana Cowboy," is Ryan Travers, a rodeo star who breezing through the circuit as it passes through Jasper Gulch just in time for the start of Big Sky's Centennial. He connects with Julie Shaw, a sheep farmer in the middle of cattle country. Her business is growing, but it is still rather small; she relies on the good graces that are extended towards her by her influential father, Jackson Shaw, a ranch owner who also happens to be the mayor of Jasper Gulch. Daddy wants to see all his children married and settled nearby; he has been trying to match Julie up with a well-to-do banker who doesn't spark her interest. Mayor Shaw is less than impressed with the itinerant cowboy who doesn't have any roots to speak of. Even Julie has her qualms about Ryan; although she recognizes the attraction between them, Ryan has turned away from God due to a crisis in his past, and she knows that she cannot go forward in a relationship with him when he doesn't hold much stock in believing in God. However, the light that Julie brings into Ryan's life is so attractive. The two of them can't seem to keep away from each other, even though Ryan has every intention to just keep things light and friendly so that there will be no hard feelings when he is ready to leave Jasper Gulch in a matter of weeks. Will Ryan come back to God, and if he does, will he and Julie be able to make a relationship work, even though he is a travelling rodeo star?
In general, I find the Love Inspired books to be fairly light reads; I can finish them in about two hours, and they don't often inspire a lot of deep thought, but I wanted to comment about this particular book, because I found it to be a little bit different than the other books that I have read that were written by Valerie Hansen. Most of the time, even though her Love Inspired titles are written with Christian characters, I have found her stories, to be just exactly that: romances with Christian characters whose conflicts are centered on whether the couple in question will get together or not. That is what I found happened in, "Montana Reunion." However, in "Her Montana Cowboy," I was a bit more engaged in the faith conflicts that the characters experienced. Maybe this is just because of the nature of this particular plot. In this case, a serious believer realizes that she cannot be yoked to an unbeliever/backslider even though she is sliding into a relationship with him, and the backslider realizes that God is real and truly cares about him, and is not as distant as he thinks.
I liked the difference that I found in this particular novel as compared to what had happened in an earlier novel of Ms. Hansen's titled, "The Hamilton Heir." In that novel, the hero is also a backslider, but his faith status is still unresolved and remains static by the end of novel. The couple gets together and even discusses marriage, but we don't know for certain if he has come back to God, or if he is just starting to believe. However, that novel was released over seven years ago, and in general, I've noticed changes in the content of what appears in the Love Inspired books since then. There seems to be more of a trend towards an active practice of Christianity in the characters lives, as opposed to a cultural one, in which the tenets of the Christian faith might not necessarily be translated into active practice in the characters. This is an improvement that I've appreciated over the years of reading from the Love Inspired lines.
I'll close off by mentioning that the mystery that appears in the Big Sky Centennial series involves a missing time capsule that was supposed to have been opened at the town's big celebration at the start of the summer. I'm guessing that the rest of the series will build upon this mystery about why the time capsule was stolen and by whom.
July Montana Reunion (prequel)
Her Montana Cowboy (1)
Aug. His Montana Sweetheart (2)
Sept. Her Montana Twins (3)
Oct. His Montana Bride (4)
Nov. His Montana Homecoming (5)
Dec. Her Montana Christmas (6)
