One Step

One Step Over the Border by Stephen Bly
from Hachette's website:

Award-winning author Stephen Bly weaves the tale of a pair of contemporary cowboys on a quest across the West. As a boy in Wyoming, Hap Bowman fell in love with a girl named Juanita. Ever since, he's experienced nothing but failure and misfortune. Laramie Majors--quiet,reserved, and patient to a fault--hasn't left Hap's side since they became rodeo partners right out of college. Now, after spending most of his adult life looking for Juanita, Hap wants to do one last big search that will take them all over the Southwest before he admits defeat. Together these two cowpokes find themselves reluctant heroes in a series of misadventures as they travel the West, all the while thinking that Hap's--or Laramie's--true love may be in the next town.

To be honest, I didn't really enjoy this book. The "misadventures" mentioned in the above synopsis doesn't even begin to cover what these two cowboys go through! It's one mishap after another, and I found it frustrating that there was hardly a breather between conflicts!

Poor guys.

I did like the characters of Hap and Laramie, though. Annamarie and Rosa were also delightful.

When I go to the North Dakota Badlands on vacation soon, I will be looking at the region while remembering these cowboys and their long journey in search of the Juanita of Hap's dreams.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there was a blog tour last summer to promote the book. I signed up and then forgot. (Sorry to the Blys, again!) I heard about the book through my membership with ACFW.

Because of ACFW, I think I had some preconceived expectations about what I might find. This is NOT a Christian romance. In fact, I wouldn't classify it as a romance at all. (Yes, there are romantic moments.) And while there are some great values shown within the plot, it's not overtly Christian in nature (and in fact a couple of things made me a tad uncomfortable). The gospel is presented toward the end of the book, so if you want to pass this book along to someone who may enjoy westerns but isn't walking with the Lord, this might be a good choice.

A reading guide is available here.