Colt Stafford grew up with resentment burned into his soul. His mother told him to trust God with all his heart, but when Colt lost her to a tragic car wreck, he decided if God existed, he sure wasn't anyone who could be trusted. His dad, Sam, was a power-loving, money-hungry man building a beef empire, but his ambition left little for his son.
It wasn't too difficult for Colt, once grown, to shrug off his cowboy boots for shiny Manhattan loafers and a promising career on Wall Street. When stock market manipulations send his career as a hedge fund manager plummeting, he's left financially strapped and decides to return to the sprawling Double S ranch in Gray's Glen, Washington. Herne painted Colt's experiences from what she had learned of real-life stock market woes. "I have two sons living in Manhattan. I watched their brilliant friends get rolled under a bus with the crash of 2008, and examining the underpinnings of what went wrong, I saw an area ripe for character development."
Colt may be broke, but he's not yet broken. As he limps home, he doesn't expect to be greeted on arrival by his dad's new house manager: a tough but beautiful stranger with a loaded gun pointed at his chest. Colt senses there's more to Angelina Morales than meets the eye, and he's determined to find out what she's hiding . . . and why. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Nick, has been Dad's right-hand man for years and isn't thrilled with Colt inserting himself into Double S affairs. As Wall Street recovers, will Colt succumb to the call of the financial district's wealth and power, or will he find the courage to stay in the saddle for good?
Herne encourages readers that family tensions, while never easy, can be more easily solved than one thinks - and it's important to mend those fences. "A dear friend of mine once said holding grudges in families is one of the most grievous of sins because how can we expect to change the world if we can't forgive one another? I've always held that close to my heart," Herne admits. "Forgive, put a smile on your face and move on."
Ultimately the lessons learned in Back in the Saddle are lessons for everyone: that disruptions to the status quo might be a reminder of God's presence and the imperfections in life are sometimes pretty perfect after all.
Readers will want to keep their eyes peeled for more in the Double S Ranch series, with book two, Home on the Range, releasing in October of this year.
Advance Praise
"A dramatic ranch setting, rich characterization and a beautiful love story make this a book to savor. This is a strong beginning for what promises to be an exciting trilogy. Ruth Logan Herne is my new favorite author!"
~ Karen White, New York Times best-selling author
"As always, Ruth Logan Herne shoots straight to the heart with Back in the Saddle . . . the heart of the story and the reader. This is one cowboy love story you'll want to enjoy to the very last page."
~ Debra Clopton, author of Kissed by a Cowboy
About the Author
Ruth Logan Herne is the bestselling author of more than 30 full-length books and novellas, with more than half a million books in print. She's written 15 Love Inspired contemporary novels, and Back in the Saddle is the first book in her new western romance Double S Ranch series. Herne is also a founding member of Seekerville, a popular writing collective blog.
The 2010 Carol Award finalist and Holt Medallion finalist is a self-described country girl who loves the big city. Life is always interesting for the mother who raised six kids through various levels of Ivy League education while waitressing in a Greek diner. Herne lives on a farm in upstate New York with her husband, and when she's not writing books, she can be found baking bread for their roadside stand or gathering eggs from her henhouse.
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