Laura Parker struggles to take responsibility over her life after the death of her husband in Peggy Patrick’s romance novel, Surrendered II: Pride.
Since her husband Matt died last year, Laura Parker can’t move on. He made every important decision for her and their five-year-old son, Andy. When Laura finds a brochure for Wyoming’s High Point Dude Ranch among her husband’s things, she takes a chance. Laura books a trip for her and Andy in the hopes that some time in the wild will begin restoring her son’s joy.
Andy quickly takes a shine to the ranch ramrod, Jesse Brandon, who doesn’t seem to mind letting the boy tag along. But he surprises Laura with his rude, confrontational attitude. When he kisses her, Laura’s pain turns to utter confusion. She begins to question everything she thought she knew about her marriage and herself, and she has to choose whether to draw closer to Jesse or to escape.
Jesse has more than one secret, and little does Laura know, he’s about to turn her world upside-down.
Laura searches for her own identity. Having married at eighteen, she has experienced very little of the world on her own. She saw Matt as the savior who rescued her from extreme poverty and emotional abuse, and gave her the middle-class life she always wanted. However, over the course of the book, Laura realizes that Matt wasn’t “taking good care of her,” but keeping her trapped in a much darker relationship. Laura comes to terms with this reality in a journey that, unfortunately, many women will find all too real.
Simply driving to the ranch opens Laura’s eyes to how much her sheltered life has taken away her freedom. But Jesse has a much bigger impact on her, forcing Laura to face the hard truths beneath the surface. She had stopped really living even before Matt’s death. Jesse helps her wake up, and though his manner is sometimes harsh, Laura starts to to understand how much she has missed, and how much more her life–and Andy’s life–can be.
Laura and Jesse develop a complicated and dynamic relationship.
Jesse’s early hostility shocks her to the point of crying more than once, but he dances between harsh and distant to gentle and attentive in the span of minutes. He even accuses her of being a bad mother, and trying to seduce his younger brother as a replacement father for Andy. Will Jesse’s harsh treatment push Laura to see that she’s hurting Andy and herself by allowing fear and grief to consume her? His dedication to showing Laura a life beyond survival makes their eventual love story even more endearing.
Faith plays a major role in Laura’s journey.
Jesse has spent the past three years forming a strong bond with God, but his ranch’s financial struggles test that faith. With Laura’s arrival, his long-suppressed physical needs are fighting what little control he has left. They clash on the idea of faith; Jesse sees God in every facet of his life, but Laura is a self-proclaimed atheist. She refuses his beliefs from the outset, and Jesse cannot understand why God would bring Laura into his life and give him such strong feelings for her. However, when Laura witnesses a true miracle, she must come to terms with this new idea that God might, in fact, be real.
Chanticleer Book Reviews is seeking today’s best books featuring romantic themes and adventures of the heart, historical love affairs, perhaps a little steamy romance, we will put them to the test and choose the best among them.
