Susanna Parker is a widow supporting a young son.  Of course, that means her job is everything.  When the FDIC questions her boss, Susanna hopes for the best but soon learns she is out of a job.  A surprise offer from her aunt brings Susanna and her son, Rusty, to Wyoming for some much needed R & R.  Susanna is a strong heroine.  She’s suffered as no woman should with the death of her daughter, but I wish she had taken what was best for her son into account more often over what was best for her.  As a mother who has lost a child, I would have thought she’d baby her only child even more.

Before long, Susanna agrees to become a live-in cook at a local ranch owned by Zeke McCall.  Zeke is a widower raising a young daughter, who hasn’t spoken a word since her mother died.  Susanna knows from the start that she and Zeke will never last.  They are both set in their ways, and Zeke tends to be too strong willed for her tastes.  She can’t stand the man, but time can heal all wounds.  Can time also change a person’s feelings for another?

SAFE PASTURE opens with a prologue that remains unresolved until much further in the book.  While I understood the timing, I did wish that the events in the prologue had been interwoven throughout the story at an earlier time.  I guess for me, I was so curious into what had happened, I was in a rush to find a resolution.  I also wished that a potential rapist within the story had been caught and punished, I never caught any outcome with that part of the plot, however minor it was.

There is tremendous promise in Donna Chapman Gilbert’s debut.  The characters keep you riveted and the dialogue is strong.  As for being an inspirational romance, it does have the qualities, but one thing is different – the heroine considers making love with a man she barely knows.  While she does stop herself before giving into that human weakness, pre-martial sex is not a topic that is usually so strongly contemplated by an adult in inspirational books that I have read, as closed minded as that may seem in today’s world.  Personally, I felt it added realism to Susanna's character, but readers with strong feelings against premarital sex may want to be prepared for that one scene.  For the rest of us, trust in SAFE PASTURE to be an entertaining read.