SUMMER MOON

Romancer Landis’s hardcover debut is a period piece with an appealing twist: the heroine must not only win the heart of her man but that of his troubled young son. When Kate Whittington’s mother can no longer raise her, she puts the nine-year-old in an orphanage run by nuns in Applesby, Maine. There Kate stays, first as a pupil, then as a teacher, until the nuns run out of money and fire her at 29. Mom, who later died in a fire, was the town whore, and when Kate looks for work she realizes that the locals have not forgotten. It’s 1869, not a good year for single unemployed women, and so desperate Kate answers an ad in the paper placed by Reed Benton, a lonely rancher in Texas who wants a bride. She marries Reed by proxy and sets off for the Lone Star State. There, she finds a wake in progress for Reed Benton Sr. She’s further confused when the younger Reed, a Texas Ranger, returns wounded from a skirmish with the Comanche. He’s brought back his eight-year-old son, Daniel, kidnapped five years ago when the Indians also killed Reed’s wife, Becky. That night, delirious and thinking she is Becky, the ranger makes love to Kate. When she discovers that Reed Sr. secretly wrote the ad because he wanted his son to remarry, Kate feels she should leave. But Reed persuades her to stay—for better and worse.

An accomplished page-turner with credible characters, if predictable outcomes.