Heartbreak Trail

Title: HEARTBREAK TRAIL

Author: Susan K. Marlow

Publisher: Kregel

July 2015

ISBN:    978-0825443688

Genre: Historical Young Adult / Suspense

Series: Circle C Milestones #2

Reviewed by: Jenna

The second in the Circle C Milestones series

Andrea Carter can ride, rope, and cut out cattle with the best of her brothers’ ranch hands. Yet, her mother has always held the family’s youngest daughter back from fully participating in ranch activities.

With the approach of her fifteenth birthday, even the ranch boss, big brother Chad, can’t deny that his baby sister is better at ranch skills than some of his cowhands. When Andi announces that her quinceañer a birthday wish is to join the upcoming cattle drive, her family is stunned. But after further discussion and multiple newspaper clippings about spirited women who balked at society’s expectations, even Mother agrees that the only way to get this cattle-drive notion out of Andi’s head is by letting her and her cousin Levi go along as Cook’s helpers. Andi is elated. What can go wrong on a two-week drive to Los Angeles?

Andi quickly discovers that a cattle drive is a dirty, dangerous business with little sleep and the same food day after day. Between late nights, dust, mosquitos, and an abrasive cowhand trying to win Andi’s attention, it is definitely not a holiday. Andi grimly determines she will stick it out. When a river crossing goes wrong and Chad is shot in a gunfight with suspicious men who have been shadowing the herd, Mitch the trail boss finds himself dangerously shorthanded. Andi and Levi can no longer just give Cook a hand. It’s time to pitch in and help Mitch get their cattle to market―any way they can.

HEARTBREAK TRAIL is a very good story. I especially loved the suspense that is so heavily put in there. The suspense was laced into every chapter of this book and I loved that. It kept me glued to the story. I had to keep reading to see what happened next.

I liked Andi a lot and am glad to see more stories about her and the Circle C. This is a book I’ll definitely want to read again. It’s going on my keeper shelf.

A great story. Recommended.

5 stars. Available in ebook and paperback. 168  pages.

I obtained this book from the author in exchange for my honest review.