Shadows in the Wind

Amnesia is the best medicine.

Date of Review:  July 17, 2007
E-book, Multi-format, no illustrations


Carolyn Lampman takes the reader back to the late 19th century, when the Union Pacific still carried passengers to Denver and St. Louis from Salt Lake City. She immerses the reader in the reality which is still the gainsay of most of Wyoming, Eastern Idaho and Utah. Additionally, she winds a wondrous love tale of the rough and ready cowboy straight out of the 1930's Western magazines, to the mysterious and memoryless, romantic but lost woman from St. Louis.


Synopsis:

Cole Cantrell's life changed the day he met Stephanie. Perhaps it would have been better had his son's horse not hit her in the head with a hoof. Certainly his view of all that would be right in the world just wouldn't be the same from that day forward.

How the heroine Stephanie, takes Cole's rough and tumble style into her hands and molds a new life for them both, is tribute to what can happen when you least expect it.

Cole and Stephanie have their ups and downs but somehow manage to find each other time and again.  Suddenly Stephanies memory returns and with Cole's cowboy pride bursting like a blown dam, Carolyn Lampaman asks and answers the final question for the reader: will they find each other one last time?

Impression:

Shadows in the Wind is an intense, captivating, and a totally absorbing read. You will want to read it in a single sitting, and find to your amazement it is a two or three evening affair.   Most of this book is so riveting you will discover  you will hate to put it down, even for a snack.  A few different areas of the book make you want to put it down, because the the emotional pull is so strong you can not absorb it without tears. 

Carolyn Lampman is a master story teller, and Shadows in the Wind does not disappoint readers in any way.  She demonstrates once again her prowess with tales, weaving consistency, facts, setting, drama, and action into a coherent enjoyable whole. 

I enjoy plot twists which keep me guessing throughout the novel.  And Shadows in the Wind definately does that.

The only slight disctraction, for me, was in having a lot of these plot twists  sequenced at the end of the story. This gave the ending a surreal feeling, which while not affecting the plot or theme, was personally disconcerting.

For a multi-day escape from the present, I strongly recommend this book.

RATING:  8 Campfires.

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Citations:

Link to Whiskey River Publishing
Author / editors / anthologists:
Carolyn Lampman
Title & length: 
Shadows in the Wind; 387 pages
Publishing House & date:
Whiskey Creek Press;  July 2007
Casper, WY  82605
(http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com)
ISBN & LCCC :
ISBN:  978-1-59374-905-7
  Comparable / additional publications:

Wild Honey
L.D. from the Inside Out
Meadowlark
Silver Springs
A Window in Time
Murphey's Rainbow
Targeted readership:

Older Teen, Western romance, general romance
1 flame for mild sexual content.One Flame Rating

Author's credentials:

(Curteousy of Whiskey Creek Press)
Author's picture -- Carolyn Lampman

Carolyn Lampman’s fiction career began in 1993 with the release of her first novel, MURPHY'S RAINBOW, which went on the win the Reader’s Choice award in 1994. It was the first of seven novels including A WINDOW IN TIME, winner of Coeur DU Bois’s Heart of Romance Award and finalist for the coveted RITA. Her other books include Shadows in the Wind, Willow Creek, Meadowlark, Silver Springs and WILD HONEY which is a February 2004 release from Whiskey Creek Press. She has recently turned her skills to nonfiction writing including L.D. FROM THE INSIDE OUT: A SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR PARENTS which is slated for release in January 2005 Whiskey Creek. She also wrote the screenplay for and co produced a short education video called LITERACY.

Carolyn lives in a small town in Wyoming with her husband, two children, and a Welsh Corgi.
Reviewer & reviewer credentials:

MD Johnson is a mountain northwest regional -- freelance author, living in Payette, Idaho. His writing interests include poetry, romance, westerns, science fiction, travel, and history. His work has appeared in a diverse range of publications including True Romance and Ballyhoo Stories. He is currently republishing the 1935 western classic historical novel, “The Bitterroot Trail” as the anthologist.

If you have a book or an ARC, you would like Mr. Johnson to review, please address your questions to him at queries@pencraft.biz.