Customer Reviews

Lone Star Sanctuary

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Tragedy is etched into Allie Siders' life, with the loss of husband in Afghanistan, her parents suddenly and finally the murder of her sister. So traumatised by the shocking losses, Allie's five year old daughter Betsy has not spoken a word in over a year and Allie is desperate to ease her suffering.

Seeking out her husband's best friend, Allie finds herself at the Bluebird Ranch, a place where endangered horses and kids on the edge learn to trust again. Ranch owner, Elijah DeAngelo, is welcoming but the cold reception Allie receives from foreman Rick Bailey has her doubting they can stay.

With threats from an unknown stalker and Betsy's grandparents seeking custody, Allie may have to take an unthinkable way out.

Lonestar Sanctuary is just what the reading doctor ordered! When I long for an uncomplicated and engaging read, Colleen always hits the spot. With effortless prose, sweet characters and intriguing suspense, I enjoyed every page as Allie, Betsy and Rick battled their fears within and without. With the perfect combination of suspense and romance, underpinned with threads of faith, Colleen's latest novel is sure to please.

Allie loses her husband to the war. Her parents and sister also die, causing her daughter, Betsy, to stop talking. Now Allie thinks she is being targeted by a killer. So she leaves the barrel racing circuit and travels with Betsy to Bluebird Ranch, a sanctuary for injured horses and troubled teens. Her husband told her if she ever had problems to find Rick Bailey, his best friend. She also has alterior motives, as she believes the ranch owner, Elijah, is her grandfather.

Rick is a troubled man himslef, from both his childhood and the war. Although he finds himself disliking Allie, he offers to marry her so Betsy's strict grandparents won't win custody of the child. Allie agrees and then the trouble starts at the ranch. Can Rick keep Allie and Betsy safe in the face of danger?

-I only gave the book three stars because it felt very flat. The characters didn't come alive and didn't engage my attention. The book didn't make me feel the tension and fear of Allie at all, which is bad since that was almost the whole plot. The book followed the Christian fiction formula, but fell short of being a must-read.

From the Inside jacket of the book:
Allie Siders is desperate to help her 5-year-old daughter, Betsy, speak again. But with a stalker out for revenge, all Allie can think about is the safety that awaits them at the peaceful Bluebird Ranch, nestled deep in Texas Hill country. Not only is the ranch a sanctuary for abused horses, but also for troubled youths. And Allie is determined to get Betsy, who hasn't spoken a word in nearly a year, all the help she needs-and find a safe haven for them both.

Ranch owner Elijah DeAngelo, compassionate and kind, eagerly welcomes the duo. But Rick Bailey, the handsome foreman, hasn't decided to let down his guard...yet. As promises made long ago soon force Rick and Allie to work together to save all they hold dear, will they discover the remarkable power of love along the way?

MY REVIEW...
I loved this book! I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I loved the characters because they were so real and the dialog really held my interest. I highly recommend this book. Colleen never disappoints in bringing a great story to her readers.

Can't wait for the sequel, Lonestar Secrets.

Allie Siders is in trouble : her husband died in Irak, someone has killed her parents and later-on her sister, her daughter hasn't talked in a year, her in-laws are suing for custody and the FBI think she helps illegal immigrants into the US.
Following the advice of her late husband, she seeks help from Rick Bailey,the Lonestar ranch's foreman, who just happens to work for Allie's long lost grandfather.
There are just too many things going on in Allie and Rick's lives to be believable. The author could have done without half the sub-plots. Rick's brother and the grandfather characters and stories should have been either better exploited or edited out. As it stands, they are barely part of the story until the final twist.
On the plus side, I liked the way the two main characters fall in love and the fact that, for a christian romance, God is not mentioned every second page. I did not feel like I was preached to like in other novels of that genre.

I wanted to like this book bc it had elements that made me want to keep reading, BUT the story was just too flawed, inconsistent and contrived. I cannot recommend it.

I'm glad I got this book free on my kindle. Because I'm a creature of habit, I tend to read the same authors. I really enjoyed this book. I plan to read more Colleen Coble. If you want to read a good christian book, look no further because this is it!! Enjoy!

I downloaded this for free on my Kindle. I have read much worse, but I've already deleted it. It wasn't a story that I wanted to revisit. Another reviewer called the characters "flat." As an English teacher, that's the wrong term. They are dynamic, evolving characters. I found the main characters, Allie & Rick, interesting. However, the coincidences in the story seemed to strain credulity. And, while I will read almost anything just for the sake of reading, I will say that the number of deaths and the sadness that pervaded the novel was a wet blanket. I teach literature for a living; I am looking for something lighter in my down time. I stuck with it simply because I wanted to see Allie & Rick and their relationship to the end.

The story was cute. It was a very feel good read that kept my attention for the few hours that it took to read it. Unfortunately, the whole thing felt a bit too contrived.

The beginning I found to be interesting and I hoped that the rest of the book would follow suit. About halfway through I realized that not only were the characters flat, I also lacked any feeling towards them. They were underdeveloped and unable to draw any empathy from me. They all were perfectly flawed - the ranch hand who was gruff and unfriendly bore a lot of guilt from the past, which was understandable when finally revealed; the main character was severely overprotective of her daughter, but it was done all in love... the list goes on. The characters didn't feel real.

The plot was just as lacking. I felt like it dragged most of the novel, with a couple interesting points here and there, but as I got towards the end, I really wondered how the author was going to tie up all the loose ends. Good news was that she did. The bad news is that they were tied in such nice and neat packages that it was all too unrealistic. Suddenly the bad guy is caught, the romance is back, lingering questions are answered, and everybody has friendly feel-good feelings towards each other again. The plot had a lot of potential that was overlooked or misused. It really was a shame.

As for the ranch being the main setting - it could have been a shopping mall for all the importance the ranch held in the story. The fact that it was set at Bluebird Ranch didn't matter as much as it should have. I've read other novels that did more with the setting than this book did.

I gave it three stars because it was a relatively short feel-good read. If that's all you're looking for, you're in luck.

LONESTAR SANCTUARY was my second read by Colleen Coble, and it will definitely not be my last. Ms. Coble writes great romantic suspense, and what's even better - she writes great Christian romantic suspense, without beating you over the head with the Christian references.

Allie Siders has dealt with too much death over the last few years. First, her husband was killed in the war in Afghanistan, and her in-laws are determined to gain custody of her daughter. Then her parents died in a tragic plane accident, and her sister was killed during a burglary. As if that wasn't enough, her five-year-old daughter, Betsy, has stopped talking.

Allie has made a life barrel racing on the rodeo circuit. But trouble has a way of finding her, and when a man claiming to be behind her sister's death tries to attack her in her trailer, she decides that it would be in the best interest of both herself and her daughter to leave the rodeo and travel to the Bluebird Ranch.

The ranch is owned by Elijah, a man who holds more importance to Allie than anyone knows, and who also runs a program that uses horses and ranch work to help troubled kids. But even more importantly, the ranch is run by foreman Rick Bailey - the man who was her husband's closest friend during the war, and who is harboring secrets of his own.

When it becomes clear that someone is determined to make Allie suffer for a sin she doesn't even know she committed, both Rick and Allie will have to put their differences aside to keep Betsy safe.

Let me just say, this book is a real page-turner. The suspense is perfectly plotted, and although I wasn't personally fond of people close to Allie dropping like flies, it worked with the story. And as I mentioned, the Christian/inspirational references were well done, without being over done.

The ending was realistic, the dialogue throughout the story was perfectly believable, and I actually enjoyed getting to know these characters. LONESTAR SANCTUARY is a winner!

I stopped reading early in the story, when she got a gun and went outside chasing the sound of a woman screaming. If it had been her own ranch, I could see her doing that. But don't you think any normal woman visiting a place would go try to find help from someone who lived there, instead of taking someone else's gun and going out into the unknown darkness exploring??? This woman has a 5 yr old too, and she does something that foolish. I couldn't take the story seriously after that.