In my ongoing quest to read pretty much every western romance ever written, I recently delved into Rosanne Bittner's epic tale of life and love on a wild Montana ranch, Wildest Dreams. This book is a reprint, Wildest Dreams was originally published in 1994, and that becomes clear once you get into the book. They really do not write books like this, at least not in the romance genre, anymore. Wildest Dreams covers 560 pages and about 30 years in the life of Montana ranchers/pioneers, Luke and Lettie Fontaine. It's a big, sprawling piece of work, very much in keeping with the classic historical romances from the 70s, 80s and 90s. This is not your typical meet, fall in love, big misunderstanding, back in love type of book. You're going to have to live with this one for a while in order to get the full impact.
Probably because she knew that she had a ton of material to cover, Bittner drops you smack dab into Luke and Lettie's story. They meet on a wagon train headed west. Lettie and her well-to-do family are headed to Denver to open a store and Luke is fleeing his wealthy father's disdain to head to Montana and make his fortune in ranching. Not a lot of time is spent with the these two getting to know each other. In fact, that is a weakness of sorts in the book. Before you know it, they meet, fall in love, and he convinces her and her family to let him marry her and take her into the wildly dangerous and unsettled Montana territory. The reader is told that one of the reasons that Lettie's family is so quick to accept Luke's interest in her is that Lettie was a victim of rape from some Confederate raiders during the Civil War and, as a result, has a two year old son. Her family believes that Luke cares for her and they see this as her chance to have a normal marriage and family life. This quick start was difficult because I never really got a feel for what attracted Luke and Lettie to each other. It seemed that Lettie wanted Luke because he was handsome and strong and he was willing to accept her son. Luke, on the other hand, seemed to like the idea of heading into the unknown Montana wilderness with a woman by his side. This jackrabbit start bothered me only until I got into the book, then I realized that Bittner wasn't necessarily telling the story of Luke and Lettie falling in love, but rather the story of them staying in love. This almost never happens anymore in the romance genre, so it took me a while to shift gears, settle in and enjoy the ride.
And a wild ride it is.
The book is divided into four parts and it does skip years in places. An incredible amount of stuff, both good and bad, happens to Luke and Lettie as they make their fortune in the wild Montana territory. This attempt to cover such a long time period does make parts of the book a bit choppy and sometimes it feels as if characters and happenings are being glossed over. That said, overall, the story flows smoothly and the passage of time becomes less bumpy the further you go into the story. Because you share so much of their lives, you do really begin to feel that you know the main characters. They are both strongly drawn and well-rounded. At times I worried that, Luke especially, was going to slip into a caricature of the strong western hero, but Bittner provides him with plenty of weaknesses and failings and that keeps him human and relatable. The strongest element of the book for me was the amazing growth and development of the two main characters. We watch as they go from young, innocent and fairly naive lovers to a couple truly tested by tragedy and heartache, and finally as they find their way back to each other emotionally and physically and emerge stronger and more in love than ever.
The tragic happenings in the book, while many, never feel over the top or cartoonish. The dangers inherent in this time period and this setting seem very real and appropriate as well as historically accurate. Children were kidnapped by indians, there was little law in the western territories and outlaws did run rampant, often threatening the lives and livelihoods of the settlers in these areas. People paid a price to forge a new land and Bittner reminds us, sometimes rather harshly, how steep that price could be. Luke and Lettie's reactions to these tragedies felt very real to me. Very genuine. The way that they were alternately drawn closer then eventually ripped apart only to slowly and painstakingly realize that their love and family was worth working for, was a truly moving aspect of this story.
Wildest Dreams took me by surprise. It has been so long since I've read a romance novel with this level of breadth and depth, I struggled a bit with trying to just relax and enjoy it. After finishing the book and thinking about it for awhile, I realized that I'm out of practice when it comes to books of this sort. I really hope that reprinted titles like this one will rouse reader interest in longer, deeper, more developed romance novels. I would love to see writers allowed and even encouraged to produce genre works of this level because now that I've eased back into it, I want to read more like this.
Rosanne Bittner appears to be writing in the inspirational sub-genre these days, but here's hoping that these reprinted editions will do so well that she'll decide to return to western romance. As someone who has recently experienced a wide range of what that western romance has to offer, I can tell you her talent would be very welcome. Until then, I'll have to make due with glomming her backlist and waiting for her second re-release, Thunder on the Plains to come out in July. I hope that some of you guys will decide to give this book a shot. I'd love to know what you think of it as well as if you like a longer, more involved romance. Maybe I'm the only one that still misses this kind of epic story, publishers certainly seem to think so.
