Author: Amanda Cabot
Title: Waiting for Spring
Publisher: Revell
Like most people this time of year, save for the lucky few who call the warmer states home, the protagonist in Waiting For Spring, a new mother and recent widow Charlotte, is doing just that.
In fact, Charlotte is in desperate need of a break since she can’t seem to catch many lately. To say she’s had a difficult year is quite the understatement since she lost her husband, became a first-time mother and now in zippy little twist, has a bank robber hot on her trail who just happens to believe she knows the location of some super-secret treasure.
Yes, in the second title of her “Westward Winds” series, author Amanda Cabot spins a mighty good yarn. Despite all of her travails, however, our leading lady isn’t a whiner.
Determined to put her skills as a dressmaker to good use, she starts her own business, something that women aren’t exactly doing much of when this story’s set. Unfazed by her critics (and she’s got ‘em), she’s got her pride, not to mention her young son to think about. As independent as Charlotte is, though, life is often anything but easy.
Not surprisingly, a man enters the picture to shake things up considerably for Charlotte, and from their first introduction, it’s fun to see her friendship evolve with Barrett. Like Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in It Happened One Night, their witty back-and-forth banter gives Waiting for Spring a delightful screwball comedy quality. It’s old-school in the best possible way.
A good guy who’s being thrust into politics of all things, Barrett is also being encouraged to marry a woman he doesn’t necessarily love. Truth is, she will help his chances of getting elected. And even though hitching his wagon to hers isn’t exactly what he wants, the pressure is weighing heavily on him.
Like Charlotte, Barrett is often torn between what he wants—and what duty necessitates, a theme that is expertly woven throughout the narrative.
Funny, sweet and satisfying, Waiting For Spring is a perfect novel for this transitional time of year. And like the best novels, it’s filled with characters you won’t soon forget anytime soon, which is more than I can say for most popular fiction these days.
*This Review First Published 2/26/2013