I won this book by leaving a comment on Barbara Scott's blog … in a drawing. It wasn't that I'd left an exceptional comment. But I'd posted because of the blurb that she'd given for West of Heaven that intriqued me. The heroine inherits a brothal in west Texas and works to teach her new employees other skills to survive without prostitution.
This isn't a Christian novel, but it has some cute characters who grow during the course of their story.
The story opens with our hero, Jean Luc Desloge, with a hangover as he punishes himself for the death of his best friends/employers. Jean Luc basically worked as the brawn for the brothal. Our heroine shows up in town because the brothal owner — her unknown mother — has been murdered. Marcella McGovern soon discovers the world she has been sheltered from all the years of her life.
I thought that the story would be about the various things Marcella attempts to teach her girls to keep them afloat, but that wasn't the case. Marcella also inherits a herd of cattle from her father that she needs to get to Kansas for market. The problem? Her father's widow, a powerful woman in town, keeps the cowhands from joining her cattle drive. The answer? Marcella and Jean Luc teach the girls to be drivers, able to get the cattle safely to Kansas.
In the process, Jean Luc and Marcella fall in love, defend each other from harm, and see the women grow into ladies capable of starting new lives.
I missed seeing Jesus have a presence in the created world. None of these characters gave any thought to their spiritual lives, and that was often seen in their actions.
