Thunder on the Plains

August 3, 2015
Veteran western romance author Bittner (Outlaw Hearts) pairs a fabulously wealthy heiress with an adventurous plains scout on a tense and twisting epic journey that will leave readers cheering. In the mid-19th century, 15-year-old Sunny Landers is being molded by her tycoon father to take over his business, and that means joining him on a trip from Omaha to the Rockies to survey the possibility of building a transcontinental railroad. She finds an untamed country that’s easy to love—and meets handsome Colt Travis, the orphaned son of a Texan missionary and his Cherokee wife. Though Colt shares her attraction, they both understand that they are too different for a successful union. While Sunny works to carry out her father’s dream of a transcontinental railroad despite resistance from within her family and years of civil war, Colt must navigate his love of the land and his complex heritage as the world around him changes and duty conflicts with friendship. The carefully woven story stumbles only when the characters stop behaving sensibly in order to expand the plot. Agent: Maura Kye-Casella, Don Congdon Associates.

October 15, 2015

The daughter of a railroad investor and a half-Cherokee scout face almost insurmountable odds in their struggle to be together. This sweeping romantic historical was first published by Doubleday in 1992.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 2, 1991
The author of In the Shadow of the Mountains packs this diverting western romance so full--with likable characters, realistic dialogue and details about frontier life--that she balances the predictable love-conquers-all plot. In 1857, 15-year-old Sunny Landers travels west with father Bo to plan routes for the transcontinental railroad that has long been Bo's dream. Colt Travis, 20 and half Cherokee, acts as their guide; his strength, good looks and love of the land are matched with Sunny's sweet disposition and beauty as a powerful but postponed romantic possibility. The opposition of Sunny's family and, later, her duties as head of the Landers empire (which contrast sharply with Colt's outdoor life and belief in honest business practices) intervene. Convenient plot devices--accidents, chance meetings, family secrets--conjoin to ensure seemingly insurmountable obstacles to the lovers' future together. Lengthy psychological musings, torrid sex scenes and inspired descriptions of the settings build toward the inevitable happy ending.