Book #26 - From a Distance

From a Distance
Tamera Alexander

Blurb: What happens when the realization of a dream isn't what you imagined... and the secret you've spent a lifetime guarding is finally laid bare?

Determined to become one of the country's premier newspaper photographers, Elizabeth Westbrook travels to the Colorado Territory to capture the grandeur of the mountains surrounding the remote town of Timber Ridge. She hopes, too, that the cool, dry air of Colorado, and its renowned hot springs, will cure the mysterious illness that threatens her career, and her life. Daniel Ranslett is a man shackled by his Confederate past, and he'll do anything to protect his land, and his solitude. When an outspoken Yankee photographer captures an image that appears key to solving a murder, putting herself in danger, Daniel is called upon to repay a debt. He's a man of his word, but repaying that debt could reveal secrets from his past he would prefer remain buried.

Forced on a perilous journey together, Daniel and Elizabeth's lives intertwine in ways neither could have imagined when first they met from a distance. (From Goodreads)

Opening Sentence: " Elizabeth Garrett Westbrook stepped closer to the cliff’s ede, not the least intimidated by the chasm’s vast plunge."

Length: Medium - 352 pages

Notes:  I really like historical fiction.  I think that's how this book made it to my list in the first place.  It's also classified as a romance, but not that kind of romance.  :)  It is a "Christian" romance, which basically meant it was really clean.  And there was some religious content in it, but nothing too cheesy.  I honestly didn't know if I would really like this book, but it was good.  Not so good that I want to immediately run out and read all the books in the series, but I may read them one by one, down the road.  The main character is a photographer, so that aspect - of how difficult photography was back in the 1800s - was also really fascinating to me.

Random quote: "At thirty-two, she still wasn't the woman she wanted to be, which was partially why she'd traveled nineteen hundred miles west to Timber Ridge, Colorado. To leave behind a life she'd settled for, in exchange for the pursuit of a dream, for however long she had left."

Recommend: yes

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