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astolenheartToday on Wednesday Writers I have best-selling author Amanda Cabot who will be sharing an excerpt from her Historical romance A Stolen Heart where a young woman’s plans for the future are shattered by the revelation that her fiancé has married another. Sounds like there’s some conflict there, Amanda, and maybe a secret or two. What other secrets and questions do the characters in A Stolen Heart face?

Secrets. We all have them. Some are small; others are big. What they have in common is that we don’t want anyone – and I mean anyone – to know them. When I started plotting the Cimarron Creek trilogy, I knew there would be one large secret that spans the three books, but I also knew there would be a number of smaller ones, because we all have secrets, and when they’re revealed, there are often unexpected consequences. Since this is a new series set in a new town in the Texas Hill Country, my first challenge was to develop that town. Once I understood its history and saw the dynamics between its founding families, I started asking myself what would bring outsiders to Cimarron Creek and why they might stay, even when they weren’t offered a normal Texas welcome. The answers surprised me. They also resulted in a new set of questions.

  • What would you do if you traveled more than a thousand miles only to learn that the man you loved married someone else?
  • How would you make a living in a town that has no need for your training?
  • What would you do if you found yourself in a town where you were distrusted, simply because of where you were born?
  • Who would you trust? The sheriff whose father is sure you’re an enemy? The other men who are eager to court you? The town’s schoolteacher who has good reasons to dislike you? The older woman who seems to have a dark secret in her life?

Those are some of the questions Lydia, the heroine of A Stolen Heart, has to answer. Some answers come easily, others don’t, but they all lead Lydia into the greatest adventure of her life, an adventure that just might end with love.

 

 

A Stolen Heart

By Amanda Cabot

From afar, Cimarron Creek seems like an idyllic town tucked in the Texas Hill Country. But when former schoolteacher Lydia Crawford steps onto its dusty streets in 1880, she finds a town with a deep-seated resentment of Northerners—like her. Lydia won’t let that get her down, though. All will be well when she’s reunited with her fiancé.

But when she discovers he has disappeared—and that he left behind a pregnant wife—Lydia is at a loss about what to do next. The handsome sheriff urges her to trust him, but can she trust anyone in this town where secrets are as prevalent as bluebonnets in spring?

 

Excerpt

Lydia took a deep breath then exhaled slowly, all in a desperate attempt not to faint. She had never fainted, not even when Hortense, her closest friend at the academy, had laced her corset too tightly. Unfortunately, tight corsets were nothing compared to this.

Edgar was married!

She’d survived the long journey; she’d endured the many snubs; she’d even managed to keep her composure when she learned Edgar was gone; but she’d come unraveled when the sheriff had mentioned Edgar’s wife.

Lydia felt the blood drain from her face, and black spots danced in front of her eyes. It couldn’t be true. The sheriff must be mistaken. But if he wasn’t . . . Lydia’s legs grew weak and her spine threatened to crumble. Stop it! she told herself. You’re not going to faint. But her body refused to obey, and before she knew what was happening, the sheriff had put his arm around her.

She should object. After all, it wasn’t proper for a strange man to be touching her. Even though she and Edgar had been betrothed, he had never been so bold in public. Lydia opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. She couldn’t object when the sheer strength of the sheriff’s arm was doing more to calm her nerves than her careful breathing.

Edgar was married!

She took another breath, exhaling slowly as she tried to make sense of a world that had suddenly gone topsy-turvy. Though the sheriff’s words had lodged inside her, Lydia refused to believe them. Edgar couldn’t be married. He simply could not. She hadn’t given up her comfortable life and traveled all this way to meet a man who’d found himself another wife.

 

Want to read more? You can find Amanda’s book A Stolen Heart at:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Christian Book Distributors

 

 

About the Author:

amanda-cabotAmanda Cabot is the bestselling author of more than thirty novels including the Texas Dreams trilogy, the Westward Winds series, the Texas Crossroad trilogy, and Christmas Roses. A former director of Information Technology, she has written everything from technical books and articles for IT professionals to mysteries for teenagers and romances for all ages. Amanda is delighted to now be a fulltime writer of Christian romances, living happily ever after with her husband in Wyoming.

Social Media Links:

www.amandacabot.com

https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot

https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/

http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/