A Hopeful Heart

While meandering through the bookstore one day, I glanced upon this book: A Hopeful Heart, by Kim Vogel Sawyer.  It wasn't the title that caught my eye, it was the fact that the girl pictured on the cover reminded me of Keira Knightley.  However, after reading the back cover synopsis, I decided to read the first chapter to see how I liked it.  Well, considering I bought and read the book, I guess I liked it.  Actually, I loved it.  How can anyone not enjoy a good love story?

The story takes place in the summer of 1888 in Barnett, KS.  Tressa Neill lost both of her parents when she was young and was raised by an unloving aunt and uncle.  Despite her upper-class education, she is forced to come out to KS by her aunt and uncle for a chance at "second-best" because she will not be accepted by any man of status because she has no dowry.  Along with five other young women from New York, she arrives in Barnett to attend the Wyatt Herdsmen School run by Hattie Wyatt.  Hattie had been a widow for a couple years and began this school to take girls from the East Coast, teach them the duties and responsibilities required to be a successful rancher's wife with the goal of marrying them off to the single ranchers in the town.

Abel Samms was one of these single ranchers who was still nursing a broken heart from the last time he'd fallen in love...with a woman from the East.  Needless to say, he still harbors a grudge against women from the east.  He tries to keep his distance from these young women, but there's something special about Tressa.  Abel has problems of his own to solve, however: over the past two years, he has been the target of a cattle rustler.  Before he can solve the problems of his heart, however, he must find the cattle rustler to save his ranch.