Set in the early 1890s, Joyce Armstrong’s LOVE’S TRACKS starts off intensely. The main couple, Sheriff Kade Wilcox and Harvey Girl Mattie Wainwright, are drawn to each other the moment Mattie steps off the train. She’s trying to avoid the attentions of a rather persistent harasser, and so impulsively walks up to the sheriff and kisses him soundly. It’s a rather anachronistic move, when a respectable lady of the times would much more likely have simply said, “Sheriff, this man is bothering me, please help,” but it does start off the book’s romantic heat quite nicely.
Their courtship is reasonably paced, especially given the doubts and fears both have about marriage. She wants to travel, needs to work to support her mother and siblings, and is wary of being abandoned the way her father has abandoned her mother. Meanwhile, he lost his first wife in childbirth, and feels both guilty about falling in love again and afraid of losing another wife the same way. Both Mattie and Kade are quite likeable characters, easily winning the reader’s affection, and they’re solidly compatible with each other to boot. There’s a good friendship underlying their tenderer feelings for each other.
The passionate romance is occasionally derailed by a tendency towards unnecessary historical explication, especially detailed descriptions of how the Harvey restaurants worked: “She was well aware that a normal Harvey kitchen made fifteen gallons of soup a day, and that system-wide eight hundred thousand pounds of potatoes were used. It came as a further surprise that the sheriff didn’t order apple pie, which was the most popular dessert followed by peach pie.” While it’s nice to know the author did her research quite thoroughly, the details at that level are better shown than told, as they tend to distract from the emotional intensity.
The most common problem with romance novels is conflict generated by misunderstandings that would be easily and trivially solved if the couple would just sit down and have a conversation. While this book is not absolutely immune to this trope, it is refreshing to have a couple who do talk about their issues and acknowledge that they need real work and thought—not just one clarifying conversation—to make continual progress. Their issues are completely reasonable: she does need to care for her family, and she does have reason to worry about marriages failing, given that her parents’ marriage already has; and he has a perfectly rational fear, given that childbirth was a major killer of women back then. On the whole, LOVE’S TRACKS is a sweet and hot romance novel perfectly suited for the tender-hearted history buff.
Joyce Armstrong’s LOVE’S TRACKS is a passionate and tender romance with a lively heroine and a hot, protective, and respectful hero.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader