A Reason To Live
During the Civil War, Laurel Covey nurses young Confederate soldiers. In a journal, she records their dying words and wishes, promising to relay them to their families. After the war, a traumatized Laurel is haunted by nightmares and plagued with a hopeless depression. Nevertheless, she embarks on her journey throughout the devastated South to visit the families whose sons died in her care.
Along the way, Creede Forrester, an ex-gunslinger who is searching for his son, rescues her from a band of ruffians. She realizes that his son was one of the soldiers whose death she witnessed. Creede is a man tormented by his past, and he blames himself for driving his son away. Profound pain, grief, and distress are the ingredients that draw and keep the two together throughout their journey.
Maureen McKade has created a brilliant storyline that tugged at my heart. The characters gush with integrity and endear themselves to the reader. The prose is vibrant and the writing so invisible that I found myself drawn inextricably into the story. McKade is fast becoming one of my favorite authors because of the realism of her down-to-earth, highly believable romances.
