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Adrian Gamble fled to Hartville, Colorado, to save his life and the lives of those he loved. All he wants now is to disappear in this little mining town and forget the day that made him a hunted man. But as the new owner of the town mine and general store, anonymity becomes all but impossible, particularly when his relationship with the pretty store manager raises town suspicions.


Phoebe Williams is a gentle young widow trying to move on. Despite her reservations about the store’s mysterious new owner, Phoebe wonders if God has brought them together for some special purpose. Can they both put the past behind them in order to secure the future?

This was a delightful love story that I enjoyed very much. It introduces new characters into the little town of Hartville and we get to be reunited with the beloved characters from book one in this series.


As this is a romance, I look at it and judge it from that framework. As a romance it began and developed with great chemistry between the two main characters, Phoebe and Adrian. Their interest in one another and interactions were real and believable. Adrian’s denial of expression of his feelings for Phoebe in order to protect her from his past (and it catching up with him) was admirable for a hero in a love story set in this time. However, I thought the fizzle dried up near the end and I was a little disappointed. I would have liked to have seen it continue on to the end of the novel.


The various other characters introduced into the book were very interesting, but I thought the plight of the chinese mine workers wasn’t really taken up and dealt with as thoroughly as it could have been.


The attachment of Phoebe to Mei-Mei didn’t seem to be flushed out enough as I felt it was a bit too trite and unbelievable. Surely Phoebe’s compassion for Mei-Mei was evident but I would have liked to see a real friendship developed there. It would make the eventual loss much more devastating and personal, less of a “statement about the plight of the Chinese workers” which came off as just that. (Chinese workers who were dealt with inhumanely by employers and sold out by their own people with the sale of opium.)


Overall, this was a pretty good read and if you read and enjoyed the first novel in this series, then I’m sure you’ll be interested in this second novel. I don’t think I’d suggest this book as the one to “hook” you on this series or even this author. I do like Ginny Aiken’s work however, and look forward to great things to say about the third in this series.