One Step Over the Border by Stephen Bly - Review

One Step Over the Border: A Novel by Stephen Bly
softcover, 2007, Center Street Books
ISBN 1599956896
328 pgs.

Not only did the cover of One Step Over the Border make me smile, but the first chapter had me laughing out loud. I don’t think I stopped chuckling until I finished the book - in record time I might add, because it was just that good. There’s just something about a story of two lonesome cowboys getting themselves in one scrap after another that tickles my funny bone.

When Hap Bowman and Laramie Majors teamed up, it wasn’t just for team-roping at the local rodeo grounds. No, they became friends that day - whether it was the screaming Juanita that brought them together or the biker with a bad taste for bowling balls. Still, it was a friendship meant to whether storms, and for ten years it did just that.

While Hap travels the country-side looking for the Juanita dancing in his memory, Laramie Majors rides along, hoping to convince him to give up his ‘idiot obsession’. The only problem is, Hap can’t - not until he gives it one more shot and one last summer.

Together this Wyoming roping team finds that more than just Juanita is waiting for them, and it starts with a capital T. Whether it’s the prospect of ending up in a Mexican jail or dodging bullets at Jose’s Git-N-Go, trouble seems to find them around every turn.

This book is a fun read, but it also makes you think about what you'll leave behind. A touching scene at a graveside burial makes you wonder just what words are going to be said over your own casket. Stephen Bly writes from a Christian viewpoint without preaching. He gives you something to ponder while slapping you in the saddle and taking you for a ride you won’t soon forget.

Wedding Bell Blues by Linda Windsor - Review

Wedding Bell Blues (The Piper Cove Chronicles #1) by Linda Windsor
Avon Inspire (June 26, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0061171379
304 pages


Wedding Bell Blues is the first in a new series, The Piper Cove Chronicles, that follows four women who grew up as best friends in a small community on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. They have returned home from their successes and failures at college and life, determined to pursue their dreams in the town they'd once vowed to leave in the dust. True love has eluded the four friends until one by one they encounter their soul mate. Next in the series is For Pete's Sake, on sale from Avon Inspire in April 2008.

Alex Butler is a successful home decorator who hopes she has finally gotten her life together. But when Josh Turner, the man who ran away and broke her heart sixteen years ago, returns to Piper Cove to be the best man in her sister's wedding, Alex can't escape the butterflies in her stomach. But Alex has no time for distractions. Her family has enlisted her to make this the wedding of the century. To pull the event off, she pools the talents of her three best friends - Jan, who creates desserts to-die-for will help with the cake and catering, tomboy Ellen, who works at a landscaping business will handle the flowers and decorations, and Sue Ann, who can…well, Suzie Q can give Alex a much-needed reality check in the course of the wedding planning chaos.

But fate won't be stopped in this small town as Alex and Josh keep running into each other at every turn. When sparks fly, Alex soon finds herself caught in a paralyzing battle of the heart between her old-fashioned Southern father, who fiercely resents Josh for breaking his little girl's heart, and her feelings for the one man she ever truly loved.



As the wedding approaches, the Butler family faces a threat to their reputation that will shake this Chesapeake clan to their very core. In the midst of it all, can Alex and Josh resist the many forces that seem to be drawing them together?

All the Tea In China by Jane Orcutt - Review

All the Tea in China (Rollicking Regency Series #1) by Jane Orcutt
softcover, June 1, 2007, Revell
ISBN: 0800731794
352 pages



I have not had a chance to review this book, but I am posting this to help Jane's family. Diagnosed with leukemia last December, Jane Orcutt finished her final novel, All the Tea in China, just before she passed away on March 17. She was 47.

From the back cover: Has this saucy high-society Englishwoman met her match? Though well-bred, fashionable, and educated, Isabella Goodrich feels useless as a spinster in a world of matchmaking and social gatherings. She'd rather be practicing her skills at the sword and discussing philosophy than making painful small talk at ridiculous parties.

Then Isabella meets the mysterious Phineas Snowe, and she becomes convinced she is meant to follow him to the mission fields of the Orient. A woman with an independent nature, she sneaks away and boards a ship to China. What she discovers about her companion and the world beyond Britain's shores draws her into a greater quest--and deeper love--than she could have imagined.

All the Tea in China is a fast-paced, witty, and lighthearted tale of adventure, romance, and the pursuit of impossible dreams.

Jane Orcutt is the author or coauthor of fifteen books, including the bestselling Porch Swings and Picket Fences. A two-time RITA award finalist, Jane was also a finalist for the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award.

Chi Libris has created a special Web site, janeorcutt.com; individual writers will blog about the new book; and a vast network of friends and colleagues will spread the word.

According to Publishers Weekly's Religion BookLine, the group hopes to drive Amazon sales on the book's release date and boost royalties to offset medical expenses incurred by Orcutt's family. Orcutt, a lifelong Texan, leaves behind a husband and two sons.