Honey’s Love

Honey Johnston seems to have it all in the small town of Engle in the New Mexico Territory in 1888. She has a comfortable home, a good job running the Wells Fargo bank, good friends, and a two-year-old son named Jerry that she loves more than anything in her life. Unfortunately, Jerry is not in the best of health, so Honey spends a lot of time riding into El Paso to see what can be done. She’s not looking for love, after a disastrous marriage in which her husband drank and gambled while she learned to run the bank. When Waco Carter steps in to her life however, nothing will ever be the same.

Waco is a half-breed who luckily is in town the day that Honey is driving her buggy. A snake scares her mare, almost causing an accident. Waco is in the right place at the right time and when he saves the beautiful Honey, he can’t get her out of his mind. He offers to drive her home and she gratefully accepts. Waco can’t believe the house that Honey lives in. She is way out of his league, far above his lot in life. Despite this fact, Waco comes back to her home to help out around the house. The attraction surrounding these two misfits is tangible and soon it can’t be denied. But Waco is still a relatively poor half-breed while Honey is a much sought after widow in town. There doesn’t seem to be much hope for these two, especially when Honey starts alienating the town by keeping company with Waco.

On top of that, Waco finds silver at his home, a fact he has to hide as it seems someone is trying to find the same thing on his land, only they are going about it illegally. Engle is becoming a dangerous place for Honey and Waco, but despite this, they continue to grow closer. But forces out of their control threaten to tear them asunder. Will these two lonely souls learn that it’s what inside that matters most, and not the material possessions that make up one’s life? Join Honey and Waco on a journey of the heart as they both discover what is truly important in life.

Honey’s Love is a very sweet and poignant tale of two people who have always been seen as outsiders finally getting a chance to form their own family, their own special bond that nobody can break. Though this story started off slowly, the more Honey and Waco interacted and got to know each other, the better the story became. Weta Nichols builds an intriguing story with an entire cast of wild characters: some mean and cruel to the protagonists, others just as interesting foils to Honey and Waco. The town of Engle proves to be a harsh landscape to set the story, the perfect place to bring together two characters that have had to make some hard choices to survive. All in all, though the prose could be purple at times, this was most definitely a good Historical Western story with which to while away an afternoon.

Reviewed by: Sarah W