Gables Against the Sky by Anita Stansfield

I have never been a huge fan of Anita Stansfield. I read a few of her books when I was in high school and they were ok, but nothing great. Obviously, I haven't read any of her books since even though she has quite a few. My younger two sister-in-laws love this story and insisted that I give it a try. I've had the book for a few weeks and this week finally started to read it. I was pleasantly surprised to find it a decent book. This is a sequel and I really don't think I would enjoy reading the first book based off of the story line told in this book, but who knows.

This started out as a typical story of growing up in Australia at a boys home and one of the troubled boys falling in love with the owners daughter, but running off when she does not agree to go riding with him one afternoon. To get revenge later on he kidnaps her and of course she falls in love with him. Her brother falls in love with their 'adopted' sister and wants to get married, but she wants to stay in Australia while he wants to travel the world. He leaves and she has his son 9 months later. He doesn't come back home until 4 years later. I was surprised to find the main story line of the kidnapping and leaving home done by the middle of the book.

Unfortunately, after this point, the book gets a little annoying since we spend the rest of the story dealing with Lacey's crazy madness at Tyson for leaving her with a kid and unable to forgive him and incredibly mad at Michael for kidnaping her and Emma. She thinks Emma is insane for wanting to marry this criminal. Of course his past comes back to haunt them and they all have to overcome murder charges and learn to deal with their past skeletons in order to live happily ever after. Like I said, the beginning of the book was good, but then the second half just got annoying with all the irrational fighting and drama. Still a decent book.