Counting the Cost [Perfect Paperback]

Liz Adair (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2009

For handsome, hard-riding cowboy, Heck Benham, life is as solid as the New Mexico countryside he loves as predictable as the annual spring roundup. Yet, that all changes when Mrs. Ruth Reynolds moves from back east into his homeland and into his heart.

The stark contrast in their lives is played out in a territory that is, itself, coming into its own. As Ruth and Heck face a trail of pivotal, life-changing decisions, their love is challenged at every turn. What will it cost them before they find what is most important in life?

With strong characters, true-to-life emotion, gentle humor, meticulous attention to detail and historical accuracy, Liz Adair paints a passionate tale of love and learning, of romance and redemption.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Counting the Cost is a novel that will break your heart and elevate your spirits. It presents a closely etched picture of life in a hard country in hard times, filled with memorable people and a love story as poignant as it is beautiful. --Ronald Shook, PhD, Associate Professor of English, Utah State University

This book is a poignant look at a grand passion between opposites, a sensory delight filled with lush descriptions, spot-on dilogue, and a well-told story of choice and accountability. Liz Adair is a masterful storyteller. Don't miss reading this book. --Marsha Ward, author of The Man from Shenandoah

This book is a poignant look at a grand passion between opposites, a sensory delight filled with lush descriptions, spot-on dilogue, and a well-told story of choice and accountability. Liz Adair is a masterful storyteller. Don't miss reading this book. --Marsha Ward, author of The Man from Shenandoah

This book is a poignant look at a grand passion between opposites, a sensory delight filled with lush descriptions, spot-on dilogue, and a well-told story of choice and accountability. Liz Adair is a masterful storyteller. Don't miss reading this book. --Marsha Ward, author of The Man from Shenandoah

About the Author

Best-selling novelist Liz Adair is a graduate student of human nature and a materful storyteller. She is known for her three-book Spider Latham mystery series and for The Mist of Quarry Harbor. She also is known for the contribution she makes to other writers and family history buffs through her reviews, blogs and consultations as well as the workshops she teaches about Using Family History in Fiction.

Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 335 pages
• Publisher: Inglestone Publishing; 1st edition (January 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977881466
• ISBN-13: 978-0977881468
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #457,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A native of New Mexico and mother of seven, Liz Adair lives in northwest Washington state with Derrill, her husband of 48 years.

A late bloomer, Liz published her first mystery (The Lodger) just as AARP started sending invitations to join. After writing three in the Spider Latham series, Liz moved into romantic suspense with The Mist of Quarry Harbor.

Liz took a break from suspense to write Counting the Cost, a novel based on family history. The book won the 2009 Whitney Award and was a finalist for the Willa Award and Arizona Publisher Association's Glyph Award.

Liz is back writing romantic suspense with Cold River and feels that's where she belongs. "I remember when I was a young mother with all those kids and a slender budget," she says. "I was so grateful for books that let me go places and meet people who carried on adult conversations That's what I want to write--cheap vacations."

Heeding advice given to writers not to quit their day job, Liz works as a forensic scheduler on schedule delay analyses. She also serves on LDStorymakers' Board of Directors, is a member of American Night Writers Association and the Skagit Valley Writers League, and chairs the annual Northwest Writers Retreat.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my all time favorite reads., February 4, 2009

By 

Dale Baker (Mesa, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Counting the Cost (Perfect Paperback)

The first time I read "Counting the Cost" by Liz Adair I started reading it about 9 or 10 PM, could not put it down and finished it at about 6 AM.

Suggestion: Buy the book and start reading it early in the day.

Counting the Cost is about a New Mexico cowboy and the eastern society woman who comes to live on the ranch where he works. It chronicles their love for each other and their life together in the primitive surroundings found in 1930's New Mexico. Liz's mastery of the story telling art will keep you laughing, crying, surprised and wondering what could possibly happen next from page one to the end. Truly a delightful book.

Counting the Cost is one of my all time favorite reads. I've read it three times to date.

Counting the Cost

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thhis book delivers!, February 16, 2009

By 

Laurie LC Lewis "historical fiction author" (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Counting the Cost (Perfect Paperback)

Counting The Cost
By Liz Adair

Liz Adair's bittersweet western drama, Counting the Cost, delivers a fresh take on an old theme--the struggles of lovers from two different worlds--that will pierce your heart regardless of gender or favored genre. Drawing from the lives of her ancestors, Adair melds adept historical research with rich literary wordsmithing and exquisitely developed characters, to transport her readers to the Depression-era New Mexico prairie. In this barren beauty, age-old values become the fulcrum upon which human virtue and frailty are balanced.

Counting the Cost delivers the emotional equivalent of a body-wrenching rodeo ride. Adair immediately lulls you, placing you in the saddle with exquisite descriptions of peaceful cowboy life, sprinkled with crisp humor. And then the gates open as human passions jerk her characters from their idyll, and choices determine the next pitch of the ride.

The book tackles difficult topics, but the author delicately handles each one with discretion and care while avoiding triviality or excuse. Sweet torture ensues as brief, tender glimpses into the spiritual discoveries of the book's hero, Heck Benham, are discreetly woven throughout the story, like a secret, adding further dimension to an already rich character, and intensifying his moral wrestle. Heck's loyalty and love for one woman challenges his inner compass, and like the cadence of an approaching drumbeat, these truths inevitably emerge: Choice matters. Character matters. Timing matters. And consequences fall due.

This reader went for the tissues several times and slammed the book shut a few as well, unprepared to face the foreshadowed events looming ahead. And then I reopened the book and read on, unable to set it aside until I knew the outcome, attesting to Liz Adair's captivating writing.

A book with this power to engage makes a perfect gift for anyone, and a splendid personal treat.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Counting the Cost, May 16, 2009

By 

Judyp14 (Ferndale, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Counting the Cost (Perfect Paperback)

Even if you're not a fan of "Westerns" you can enjoy this book. It is about a cowboy and the west of the 1920s, and the woman from the east. She is a socialite. She is also married to someone else. This simple cowboy tries to fight the feelings he has for her, but when he sees what her marriage is really like, he can't stand by and leave her in that situation. He knows that by living with a woman with whom he's not married, he will be going against everything he has always believed and that he and she will not be accepted in the local society or even by his family. His love for her is so strong that he is willing to make that sacrifice. I was simply not prepared for some of the twists and turns that the book takes, but it kept me reading, crying, laughing and totally enjoying the journey.
When the book ended and I had dried my tears, I wanted to know more. I think it's great when you hate to have a book end. And it certainly didn't end the way I expected!
Liz Adair really does a great job of drawing out her characters. I feel like I actually know them. I have read all her books and hope that their are many more to come.