"Waiting for Spring" by Amanda Cabot

Waiting for Spring is an interesting book—one that kept me intrigued with how everything was going to play out. When I first picked up this book to read it (on a Sunday afternoon), I ended up reading almost half of the book that day! It was hard to set it down for dinner or bed.

 

Amanda Cabot’s second book in her Westward Winds Series was just as good as the first book. This book picks up approximately a year after the first and follows the story of Charlotte Harding Crowley, widow of gambler and stagecoach robber Jeffrey Crowley. Charlotte has moved to a new city in hopes of escaping her husband’s reputation and his partner, “the baron”—a dangerous man willing to kill anyone who comes between him and his quest for money and power. Using her maiden name, Charlotte has opened a dress shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory.

 

In Waiting for Spring, Charlotte and her two new friends, Miriam and Gwen, each follow their own path in their search for love. Charlotte’s path crosses that of cattle baron and aspiring politician Barrett Landry. Through their interactions, they both discover that God has bigger plans for each of them—ways that they can touch the lives of others around them.

 

There are a few things that really stood out to me when I read this book. Firstly, it discusses using our talents to help others. Early on in the book, Charlotte says to Barrett, “I’ve always believed that each of us was put on Earth to make it a better place. We can’t change the past, but if we make the present the best it can be, we can influence the future.” We the readers go on a journey with Charlotte and Barrett as they both try to discern what their callings are and what they can do make Earth a better place—something I know that I personally struggle with.

 

This book also touches on something few novels I have read have touched on before—a disability. Charlotte’s son David is blind. It was interesting to read about the common beliefs during that time period and how difficult it was to try to teach a blind person. Today when we have so many options and services available for the disabled, it is hard to imagine the struggle that family members had to go through at one time just to figure out how to provide the best for their disabled loved one.

 

Finally, I enjoyed seeing Charlotte’s growth throughout the book. In the beginning, we see Charlotte’s fear of the baron finding her and the lengths to which she would go to protect herself and David from him. As a fiercely independent woman, she tells no one of her true identity nor does she ask for help. It is a hard lesson to learn, but by the end, she realizes that there are others around her who love her and wish to help her—it is up to her to let them. One of my favorite passages from the book reads,

 

“Being needed, helping others, and feeling useful were basic human needs….[Charlotte] had believed she needed to do everything herself. Asking for help was a sign of weakness, or so she had thought….She had been so blind that she hadn’t realized that by struggling to do everything herself, she was depriving others of the opportunity to be needed.”

 

Wow! What a powerful statement--“…she was depriving others of the opportunity to be needed.” How are you depriving others of the opportunity to be needed?

 

A great book overall and full of good lessons!

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Waiting for Spring

Almost a year ago, Charlotte had a baby and lost a husband. Hearing that a notorious robber believes she knows the location of a long lost treasure, she flees to Cheyenne and opens a dressmaker’s shop to make a living. When wealthy cattle baron and political hopeful Barrett Landry enters her shop with his lovely fiancée, Charlotte’s heart betrays her. If Barrett is to be a senator of the soon-to-be state of Wyoming, he must make a sensible match, and the young woman on his arm has all the right connections. Yet he can’t shake the feeling that Charlotte is the woman who holds the key to his heart and his future.

Soon the past comes to call and Barrett’s plans crumble around him. Will Charlotte and Barrett find the courage to look love in the face? Or will their fears blot out any chance for happiness?