TOUGH TRAIL HOME

By Marie W. Watts

Women’s Literary / Small Town & Rural / Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Publisher: Black Rose Writing

Pages: 253

Publication Date: March 27, 2024

SYNOPSIS

“Tough Trail Home is a delightful read about a family coming to terms with each other and their new lives.” –Pamela Stockwell, author of A Boundless Place

The Dunwhitty family is flying high until their carefully choreographed life falls apart during the 2008 Great Recession. Lisa’s firm goes belly-up while Michael’s shuts down after selling faulty heart valves. Desperate, Lisa insists they regroup by seeking refuge in rural Central Texas on land she inherits from a distant relative she barely knows.

It’s not the ranch Lisa remembers, but a ramshackle money pit. Michael and their teenage son, Andrew, despise the place. Only their young daughter, Jessica, is happy. After a bitter argument, Michael moves to the city. As his job search drags on, Lisa begins to plant roots; friendships develop for her and the children. With the help of Michael’s parents, her neighbor, and the remains of her savings, she begins to return the ranch to its former glory. The couple continues to drift further apart, Michael turning his attention to another woman.

A call from the sheriff’s department that their son is in custody jolts the couple to the core. Can they repair their relationship for the sake of their son? Or is it too late?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

An award-winning author, Marie W. Watts, is living her dream of being a writer. Her novel, Tough Trail Home, has received acclaim as a winner of the 2024 PenCraft Seasonal Book Award Summer Competition for Fiction – Women’s Genre; Winner in the 2024 Storytrade Book Awards “Regional Fiction ‐ USA Southwest” category; 2024 Speak Up Talk Radio International Firebird Book Award Winner, and The Outstanding Creator Award for Best Fiction Book of Summer 2024 (2^nd place).

Her novel has garnered reviews such as “inspiring,” “fantastic read,” “beautiful scenery, heart, and hope,” and “a wonderful story about resilience and resourcefulness.”

She and her husband live on a ranch in central Texas. In her spare time, she supports a historic house and hangs out with her grandsons.

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REVIEW

The Dunwhittys – husband Michael, wife Lisa, teenage son Andrew, and preteen daughter Lisa – seem to have it all. Michael’s job pays well, even if they do move around a fair bit, and Lisa finds good-paying work as an accountant wherever they go. But when Michael’s newest job falls apart due to the owner’s criminal wrongdoing, the high life comes to a grinding halt. When Lisa learns that her uncle left her his ranch in Fayette County, she sees a glimmer of hope. They’ll have a roof over their heads! But then they see the ranch, and it’s a disaster. Way off the beaten path, in need of a LOT of TLC, it will take a lot of work to make it livable. Andrew hates it, Lisa is determined to make a go of it, and Michael is so opposed to living on the ranch that he leaves. Claiming he can’t possibly find work that pays what’s needed to maintain the family’s standard of living out there in the sticks, Michael leaves Lisa and their kids at the ranch for days, weeks at a time, looking for employment in more civilized pastures.

At first, this book just made me angry and annoyed. Michael and Lisa might have had lots of things, but they didn’t have a happy marriage. Michael felt the burden of carrying the family financially. Lisa secretly stewed about their constant moves, tired of thinking each move would be their last and she’d finally found the place she could make a home. But they never talked to each other beyond sniping and worrying about finances. Michael was downright ugly about the ranch, and if it had been my husband laying down proclamations that he wasn’t going to take advantage of a roof over our heads when we needed one, I’d have drop-kicked him into the next county. Andrew was a moody teenage boy who had learned a sense of entitlement from his parents, and Jessica and her dog, Princess, were really the only likable characters.

But I kept reading. And Michael continued to be a jerk, but Lisa started figuring out how to make lemonade from the lemons life threw at her. She started meeting people and making friends. While Michael was on his way to his next high-dollar job interview, pouting that Lisa wasn’t pulling her weight, Lisa was learning about options to make the ranch a profitable business and navigating the challenges of parenthood. She got a lot of help from Michael’s parents and from her neighbor, Carl, who had been a good friend to her uncle and aunt. And she found a treasure trove in an ancestor’s journal.

The characters are what drive this book. Watts gives them plenty of opportunity for change and growth. Some take advantage of that opportunity more than others, and those character arcs are what move the story along. Although the book and I didn’t get off on the best foot, I grew to care about Lisa and her kids, even when I wanted to shake Andrew for doing stupid teenage things. It was a delight seeing Lisa grow out of Michael’s shadow and find a way to not only survive amid challenges, but thrive.

I liked the book a lot better at the end than at the beginning. The actual ending, though, felt abrupt and rather unsatisfying. It just…ended. What happened?! I would have liked another chapter or an epilogue for a little more wrap-up of the different story threads.

As we watch the Dunwhittys maneuver through one difficulty after another, and we learn why Lisa is so determined to make a dilapidated ranch a place she can put down roots, the truth of the title becomes clear. The trail is tough, but for those strong enough to persevere, it can lead home.

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Disclaimer: Thanks to Lone Star Book Blog Tours for a review copy. All opinions here are my own, and I don’t say nice things about books I don’t actually like.

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