Soon Annie discovered she was pregnant, and that nobody knew where Cort had gone. With her grandmother's reluctant blessing, Annie left her hometown of Apache Springs, New Mexico for Florida and an aunt she hadn't known existed. Art school and business classes taught her the business end of running an art gallery. Her Aunt Jeanne taught her the meaning of family in ways she had never imagined. Having a child, Courtney, as an unmarried woman in the 1950s taught her many realities of life.

Annie grew into a successful artist, part-owner of a busy art gallery in Florida, a beautiful woman with an adored daughter. Still, her heart longed for the young man she'd married but not seen or heard from for seven years. When her stepmother was injured and asked for her in the hospital, Annie flew back to Apache Springs to see the woman who had always been cold toward her. The town fanned the ever-present spark of love for Cort, and once again Annie tried to find him - without success.

Returning to Florida, Annie found herself pulled between the two locations, between young love and an offer of new love, between business as usual or something new. As she made her choices, Annie finished growing into the woman she'd almost given up on becoming.

Weslynn McCallister's 'Apache Springs' is Annie's story, and it is also the story of a small town in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It's a story of families rooted and uprooted, of hearts bound by time and place, of hope everlasting and the possibilities inherent in true love.

Overall rating:
Sensuality rating: Sweet

Reviewer: Chas Ridley
October 4, 2003