Sixteen-year-old runaway Reagan has always wanted a place to belong. She’s never had a real home of her own, but perhaps she could borrow someone else’s. Under an assumed name and identity, she moves to Harmony, Texas, but keeps her distance from the welcoming townsfolk. Until prairie fires threaten Harmony-and Reagan learns the true meaning of family, friends, and home.

When Reagan lands in Harmony she feels like she’s home. She had cleaned rooms at a nursing home and had read letters and newspapers from Harmony to her friend Miss Beverly. When Reagan landed in Texas she wasn’t sure what she’d do but the decision was taken out of her hands. She was taken straight to Jeremiah Truman, Miss Beverly’s brother, since she had told people her name was Truman. Though they get off to a rocky start Jeremiah and Reagan hit it off, in their own gruff way, and Reagan stays with him.

Reagan also finds a friend in Noah McAllen, fellow high school student and local bull rider. Noah, also called Preacher, befriends Reagan and she starts to care for him as well as others in town. She’s had a rough past – although we never find out exactly what…only that she’s been shipped from foster home to foster home.

Then there’s Noah’s sister, Alex, who is the town sheriff. Alex is carrying around guilt from her older brother’s death from 3 years earlier and it puts a shadow on everything she does, including her interactions with volunteer fire chief, Hank Matheson. She cares about him but since her older brother and Hank were best friends she can’t look at Hank without thinking about Warren. For Hank’s part he can’t look at Alex without wanting her. He’s a wonderful man who loves his family, his ranch, especially his niece and of course Alex. He takes care of Harmony and all the people that are in it to the best of his ability.

Then we have Tyler Wright who’s not exactly a people person. He runs the local funeral home as his father and grandfather did before him. He enjoys it to a point but there are definitely things about it he hates. He can’t remember anyone’s name but a few in town and he loves old maps. He starts an internet conversation with a woman that he had dinner with the year previously and it seems to be a romance.

Then fires start breaking out all around town and Alex and Hank are put to work to save the land. Tyler is thought to be a suspect by some, but only a few. Reagan, Jeremiah and Noah are attempting to save the Truman land and no one can figure out who’s setting the fires.

I have to tell you that I just adored this book. It had romance, intrigue, family, humor, acceptance…oh I could go on and on. Jodi Thomas truly knows how to write a story that has all the parts of a story that you love and she wraps them up in a wonderful tale that has you flipping pages faster than you thought possible. I don’t think there was anything about the book that I didn’t like and that’s pretty difficult! I can’t wait to read the next book in the series on Harmony and find out what’s happening with all of the interesting characters that she’s created.

Rating: 5 out of 5

The series:
Somewhere Along the Way(coming Nov, 2010)

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format.