Review: Caught in the Middle by Regina Jennings
She Wants the Freedom of the Open Plains.
He Wants the Prestige of a Successful Career.
Neither is Ready for What Comes Instead.
The train to Garber, Texas, is supposed to bring life’s next victory to Nicholas Lovelace. Instead, it gets held up by robbers who are thwarted by the last person Nick ever expected–Anne Tillerton from back home in Prairie Lea.
Anne’s been hiding away as a buffalo hunter. She’s only in town to find their runaway cook, but the woman flees–leaving Anne with her infant son. With Nick the only person Anne knows in town, the two form an unlikely team as they try to figure out what to do with the child.
But being in town means acting and dressing for polite society–and it’s not going well for Anne. Meanwhile, Nick’s work is bringing new pressures, and being seen with a rough-around-the-edges woman isn’t helping his reputation. Caught between their own dreams, a deepening relationship, and others’ expectations, can the pair find their way to love?
I’ve been a fan of Regina’s since Sixty Acres and a Bride. It remains my favorite book of hers, though I did enjoy Love in the Balance.
Caught in the Middle lets us catch up with Anne, one of Rosa’s neighbors in Sixty Acres and a heroine in her own right by the end of that book. Now, she’s been “one of the guys” hunting buffalo and hiding out from her past and those who would judge her.
Meeting Nick doesn’t change what she wants, but other circumstances mean she must stay in town – and that means no dungarees. She needs to dress as a woman and try to find her place in polite society. Everyone knows who she is and they see right through the veneer of womanhood to her “tomboy” side.
She does her best to help Nick with his business and in his new position on the city council.
They want different things out of life and are forced to make hard decisions. In the end, they make the right ones, but that doesn’t make things any easier. Will it bring them together or tear them apart?
This is the end of the series [or so I understand], but I look forward to the next one.
Overall rating: 8.25 out of 10 stars