Book Review: Tough Trail Home by Marie W. Watts

Tough Trail Home by Marie W. Watts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Welcome to Green Acres Texas-style.

Tough Trail Home by Marie W. Watts is a new contemporary women’s fiction novel about the Dunwhitty family and their struggle to overcome the upending of their previously privileged lives. With sympathetic characters that can’t seem to catch a break and an unrelenting flood of mishaps, I couldn’t put this book down.

When Michael Dunwhitty’s career suddenly evaporates, his young family has just relocated to Houston, Texas. His wife, Lisa, who had relinquished a steady, if not fulfilling, job as an accountant to follow her husband to his new situation, was slated to work at the same firm and is also left high and dry. As Michael encounters rejection after rejection and their family’s future starts to feel desperate, Lisa receives the news that her Great-Uncle Joe has left her a 4,000+ acre ranch in central Texas. The legacy, however, comes with some strings. In order to receive the gift, the family must live there, the property cannot be sold, and there is a sizeable tax bill that is past due. While it would provide an immediate and stable home for the once-affluent family, Michael is a city boy with an absolute aversion to rural or even small-town living. Welcome to Green Acres Texas-style, however, nobody’s laughing.

The narrative unfolds from Lisa’s and Michael’s points of view, so readers are privy to their actions, thoughts, and inner monologues. Lisa is an engaging young woman who loves her husband and family, as does Michael. He is used to career success with a lucrative paycheck, driven to act by childhood memories of his father working his life away as a mechanic and never being there for events that were important in young Michael’s life. Ironically, his single-minded desperation to duplicate his former success means he’s not there when his family needs him. Worried and fearful, both husband and wife carry a load of resentment toward the other and say things they shouldn’t, failing to come to an agreed-upon plan of action for the future.

The story is full of twists and turns, catastrophes and near-misses. Lisa, at the ranch and on her own with the two children, must weather the hard knocks without the one person she relies on most – Michael. Thankfully, she finds support in Michael’s parents, who arrive for an extended visit, and Carl, a godsend of a neighbor, as well as a close-knit group of local women friends who bring her into their fold. As these people open their arms and hearts to Lisa and the children, their beliefs about what is truly important in life change. They just need to convince Michael of the same thing before it is too late.

After their son Andrew has a brush with the law, Michael experiences a sudden revelation that his family needs him to be present. I felt both his turnaround and the ending immediately after happened too quickly and easily. This made me wish for a sequel about the reunited Dunwhitty family living on the ranch and making a go of their miniature cow operation.

I recommend TOUGH TRAIL HOME to readers of contemporary women’s fiction and family dramas.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author through Lone Star Book Blog Tours.

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