About the book, Langston’s Daughters 
- Publisher: Skye House Publishing
- Release date: December 3, 2014
- Formats: paperback, ebook
- Pages: 156
Kate, Jenny, and Mandy. Langston Lockwood’s daughters. His tyranny drove them away. His suicide draws them home. They inherit his land, his millions, and his mysteries. Meet the women of the Rocking L and the men who come into their lives. Together, they begin the journey to discover the truth about The Lockwood Legacy. From the pain of the past they find the strength to build a dynasty.
Langston’s Daughters is book one of The Lockwood Legacy.
Buy, read, and discuss Langston’s Daughters
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Per the author, this title will be available from Barnes and Noble soon.
About the author, Juliette Harper
Juliette Harper is the pen name used by the writing team of Patricia Pauletti and Rana K. Williamson. Like the characters of their debut series, The Lockwood Legacy, Juliette is a merging of their creative energies.
Pauletti, an Easterner of Italian descent, is an accomplished musician with an eye for art and design. Williamson, a Texan from a long line of hardheaded Scots, knows the world of the Lockwoods like the back of her hand.
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My Thoughts
This novel is not only the debut novel from a writing partnership I’m sure will go on to great success, it is the first in a series about Langston Lockwood (now deceased) and his three grown daughters, Kate, Jenny, and Mandy. It’s a romance. It’s also kind of/sort of a western, in that it takes place on a ranch in Texas. Neither of those is my favorite genre, but even if half of the writing partnership that makes up “Juliette Harper” wasn’t one of my oldest blog-buddies, I would say the same thing about this book: It’s a great, fast read full of engaging characters and situations that carry the essence of truth.
What a particularly liked was that each of the three women at the center of this novel were distinct characters with their own habits, preferences, personalities, and voices, but that they still ‘felt’ like people who had shared common experiences and had grown up together, as sisters should. Author Harper also excelled at finding, and relating, the human moments that happen in all families – the way bickering can lead to either laughter or tears, and the way people who disagree with each other can still love one another.
Of course, no romance is complete without hunky guys, and this novel manages to make them (I liked Josh Baxter especially) seem as real and dimensional as the three central characters, and the same is true for all of the supporting characters, and even the community in which the ranch exists. As well, Langston himself, despite having committed an off-camera suicide before the novel even opens, is a very real character, and his presence, while not physical, still looms large throughout the story.
When Mandy is in town noticing the number of empty storefronts, it resonated with me, and likely will with most aware readers, because small towns are facing that all over the U.S., and especially those in parts of the country where farming and ranching remain significant ways of life, as well as crucial parts of the economy. That scene is just one of the many ways Langston’s Daughters has been imbued with levels of depth and realism not found in typical romance novels.
If you want a book that has romance and intrigue without the cookie-cutter heroines and twinkling-blue-eyes heroes that could easily be stock characters, you need to read Langston’s Daughters. If you love books featuring smart, strong women who appreciate and are appreciated by smart, strong men, you need to read this novel. If you like the idea of waking up at six in the morning to ride a horse up to a ridge, this novel is for you.
I can’t wait for the sequel.
Goes well with: Chili, corn bread, and a cold beer.