The Talk of Coyote Canyon ©2023 is another predictable, yet still engaging, romance by Brenda Novak. It is the second book in her newest series situated in Coyote Canyon, Montana. Per my 10/9/23 post, the first book in the series was Talulah's Back in Town. Some of the familiar characters from the first book are reprised in the second book. I like the feature of repeat characters and community that I already know since this setup allows me to engage in the story more quickly.
A warning though, is that in The Talk of Coyote Canyon, Novak takes more than a chapter in the beginning to establish the relationship among the "new" key characters: Hendrix and Ellen (future eventual romantic pair), Stuart (Ellen's father who abandoned her when he remarried), Stuart's second wife Lynn (also Hendrix's aunt who took him in when he was orphaned), Leo (Lynn's son). Perhaps this familial groundwork was necessary to rule out the possibility of a genetic link between Hendrix and Ellen so they could get romantically involved after the initial period of hatred between the two was dissolved. Truth be told, I sketched myself a graph to understand it all.
Hendrix and Ellen are competitors in the business of drilling water wells. The occupation itself did not win over my interest, other than the fact that it helped established the character, determination, and strength of Ellen in a male dominated field. Interactions among characters with a Down's Syndrome character is heartwarming and thoughtful. A deserved demerit is that the in-their-head mental deliberations of Hendrix and Ellen dominated the moving forward action, more so than in other Novak works. Due to the distractions of the holidays, house guests, and some medical issues, I was in a reading slump. One of the redeeming features of this book, an effortless escapist read, is that it brought me out of those doldrums.
Brenda Novak is a prolific author and I have read all her books in the Silver Springs series (8 books per post 7/26/21) and those in the Whiskey Creek series (10 books per post for 5/5/18). I will continue with Coyote Canyon. Despite my misgivings about The Talk of Coyote Canyon, I will continue to read the ongoing Coyote Canyon series.
