Amanda Cabot: At Bluebonnet Lake

By Kelly Bridgewater

Another story of where a girl is taken out of her comfort zone and thrown into a situation and a world that is foreign to her is exactly what Amanda Cabot has created with her latest book, At Bluebonnet Lake.

The heroine is named Kate Sherwood, who is an advertising agent who wants to make partner with her firm in Manhattan, New York. Being raised by her grandparents since the drive-by killing of her parents when she was seven years old, Kate has always dreamed of working in advertising after her grandfather Larry took her to work one day. Kate allows herself to dream about making partner. This will truly make her happy.

But one early spring morning, her grandmother, Sally, invites Kate to come to the Rainbow’s End resort in Texas. Unwilling to disappoint her grandmother who raised her, Kate tags along. Arriving at the dilapidated retreat, Kate is reminded of how much she wants to return home.

Enters Greg who works on the screen to keep the bats away. As the story progresses, Kate and Greg fall in love and learn about each other’s past that they have kept hidden for many years. But Kate and Greg are not the only two people in the story finding love, Grandma Sally and an older gentleman named Roy spend a lot of time together and decide to stay in the Texas Hill Country and get married. At the end of the story, everyone finds happiness and understands the joy of being in a place of harmony and serenity.

The characters in the story were well-written. If you are looking for a contemporary fiction romance piece than this story would be the one for you. Kate thinks she is chasing after what she really wants, but like most people, she has allowed herself to believe the lies. The hero, Greg, similarly runs away from what he thought made him happy and finally seeks the peace with God that he wanted to find when he arrived at Rainbow’s End.

The plot moved along to show the relationship and how it deepened for Greg, Kate, Sally, and Roy, but personally, as someone who reads a lot of suspense novels, I wanted to see something more exciting happen. Even with the entrance of Drew, Greg’s former partner, didn’t really do much to the plot, it just further cemented Greg’s idea of not returning to his former life. I think the story took a long time to come to the ending that I knew was going to happen about one hundred pages in. But I’m sure most fans of romances and contemporary fictions would devour this book. Since I’m an avid reader of suspense novels, this was probably why I got bored with the long-drawn out plot line.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Revell in exchange for my honest opinion. All the above stated opinions are mine.