Jolie Jensen and her ten-year-old daughter, Dannie, steal away from their trailer home in the middle of the night to escape her abusive, meth-addict, ex-husband, Billie. Jolie switches license plates from another car just in case Billie reports their beat up old car stolen. Jolie's Cousin Amanda is a deputy sheriff in the West Texas town of Locket and she has gotten Jolie a job as a cook at the Circle C Ranch, a large and very prosperous spread owned by J. D. Strayhorn and his daughter, Jude Fallon.

Jolie and Dannie are furnished a small two-bedroom house as part of the salary package, and neither of them has ever lived in anything but a trailer house. Everyone is so nice, and Dannie fits right in at the small school in Locket, which is twenty-eight miles from the Circle C. No one back in Grandee, Texas knows where Jolie has gone, but she still expects that Billie will find her and cause her trouble.

Jake Strayhorn is the nephew of J. D., but they have not spoken to each other in nearly twenty-years. Jake's father and J. D.'s second wife had an affair and died together in a car wreck. Jake and his mother left the ranch after the funerals and moved to Dallas, but Jake has recently returned to Locket and is the sheriff. When he meets Jolie he knows without a doubt that she is running from something or some one, but he senses that she is one of the good people God put on this earth, and admires her spirit and her innate beauty, and J. D. comes to care a great deal for her. When he finally gains her trust and confidence, Jolie tells him about Billie, and J. D. vows to keep her and Dannie safe.

MAN OF THE WEST is a terrific book with true-to-life flawed characters and several fascinating subplots. Sadie Callahan's superb narrative will run the gamut of your emotions and the pitch-perfect pacing of the story help the pages fly by rapidly. Characters introduced in LONE STAR WOMAN are featured prominently and continue with their lives. MAN OF THE WEST has it all -- drama, romance, a smidgen of mystery, and just may be the best book you will read this year.