It's 1846 and Mariel, a young widow and indentured servant, is one of a group of German immigrants who have come to America to start a new life. Except, the group finds that life in Texas is very different than in Germany and certainly much harder than Mariel expects. Upon their arrival, Texas Ranger Carson Quinn reluctantly agrees to escort the group to the land that has been promised to them in Comanche territory. When Carson gets a whiff of how Mariel's employer is treating her (and what he wants from her) his protective nature takes over. But he has no intention of getting heavily involved, despite his attraction to Mariel, because any day he knows he will be called to war.

Lyn Cote does an excellent job of depicting a time in American history with which many may be unfamiliar. So many interesting historical facets come together in this romantic suspense story -- the settling of Texas prior to the Civil War, the fight by Indians to hold on to their land, the battle between America and Mexico for Texan land, European immigration and early German settlements in the U.S., American slavery.

As much as I enjoyed this story, I felt too removed from Mariel. I was sympathetic to the situations she had to endure, but didn't find that I was particularly enamored with her character. Carson on the other hand was very likable as was his entire family, an interesting bunch of characters of varying degrees of mixed heritage. I imagine some social mores that later became widespread, like not marrying across ethnic lines, were quite blurred during the settlement of the Western frontier so I found this group particularly interesting and suspect some of their stories are found in the first two books of this series. Also, the spiritual arc of the story wasn't particularly clear to me as Mariel and Carson both seemed to be quietly strong in the faith right from the beginning. Yet all in all, HER ABUNDANT JOY was a fascinating and likable read.