Fateful Waters by J. M. Anton
Review by Reynold Bowen
ISBN: E-book: 978 -1-4762-1077-3
General Subject matter: A romantic story about a young woman who, after graduating from an eastern American university, becomes involved in new relationships in a world outside of the university portals. Alexandra Parker, better known as Lexie will have to learn how to deal with new people. They will have both good and bad intentions.
Theme: The effects of being roughly pushed into a new culture.
Thesis: The effects of physically pushing two cultures together, and letting everyone try to work out the problems that most certainly arise.
The author presents Lexie the heroine, with the problems of interrelationships between massively different cultures. Lexie knows about farm animals, and their needs, but she knows little or nothing about theTexaspanhandle, and is nearly killed in a flash flood, something almost unheard of in the farming area ofOhio. Her friend Melanie Potter will quickly become the prey in a quest by a fortune hunter named David Decker, because her family is wealthy, and his only desire is money. Lexie will also become involved in the everyday life on a modern day ranch, the Rocking R owned by Cutter Ross. The problems surrounding her friend Mel, and her own difficulties finding her way in this new world will follow her throughout the story, and she will have to work them out whenever she can while becoming a sexually complete woman at 24. The characters are all developed in an interesting manner, and all are perfectly real to the reader. They easily show the difference between Americans from the east of the country, and those from the western portion.
The story contains a series of incidents, and adventures which will draw Lexie into her new life, while pushing her away at the same time.
The Author follows Lexie and her thoughts as much as possible to give the story a chronological order, but will move to other characters, for example Cutter Reed, when Lexie is unconscious, and recovering in the hospital after her introduction to a Texas flash flood.
The author will also shift to David Decker in order to give the reader a better understanding of his deceitful manners. In every description the author gives the reader details about the characters in the story, and the setting so that the reader will have a very good picture of the weather conditions of Texas, and how they differ so greatly with those of the eastern states. The descriptive portions of the story are short, and to the point, so that the reader feels that he, or she is being given just enough help to understand the story, while the author constantly gives small clues to support the problems she gives Lexie. Ms. Anton has a good knowledge of horses, and livestock, so her descriptions are very realistic, and re-enforce any incidents, or problems that she presents to her characters on this ranch. Ms. Anton lives in Ohio, so it is easy to see why her description of the events that happen there, are also very accurate, and believable. The author’s knowledge also includes domestic animals, and her description of the part played by Lexie’s dog is accurate, and well written.
Just as the reader thinks that the story may be nearing its conclusion, Ms. Anton brings back earlier problems, and presents the heroine with new possibilities to resolve them. This keeps the reader’s curiosity peeked until the end of the book. Even then, the reader is presented with more situations that will only be able to be worked out in the following book.
Ms. Anton has delivered a very good, and highly readable adventure for adults, and this book is definitely worth a read. As this story is part of a continuing adventure for Alexandra, it is highly recommended that the reader purchase not only this book, but also the following books in order to help Lexie and Melinda solve all the difficulties which life has presented to them.
R.B.
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