Booklist Review

Cimarron Creek's schoolteacher Catherine Whitfield's dreams of Paris were dashed when the local doctor's care killed her mother. Austin Goddard, an attractive widowed rancher, arrives in town with his daughter, Hannah. Catherine tries to help Hannah, who is withdrawn and unwilling to talk or play and claims to have been born in Paris. Austin is new to ranching and harboring the secret that he is a doctor because they fled to Texas to escape a mobster who wanted Austin to surgically alter his appearance. Catherine and Austin are brought together by two of her students, Hannah and Seth, a teen whose home life is so abusive Austin hires him to help on his ranch to give him sanctuary. Cabot's sweet love story will appeal to readers of gentle romances, while readers of historical fiction will enjoy learning about nineteenth-century plastic surgery. Although this title stands on its own, readers of A Stolen Heart (2017), the first in Cabot's place-based trilogy, will be happy to revisit the folks of Cimarron Creek.--Herald, Diana Tixier Copyright 2018 Booklist