Clouds of secrets loom over a Texas town…too many people are hiding things in this town. Afraid of something or someone.

Lightning and Lace is the third installment in DiAnn Mills’ Texas Legacy series. This is the only one in the series I have read so far, and she did a great job of making it stand on its own.

Bonnie Kahler is a widow still grieving the death of her husband two years earlier. Her twelve-year-old son has become impossible to handle, and she’s ready to send him to a military school before he hurts someone.

Travis Whitworth is the new preacher in town. He’s hiding behind a mountain of hair and baggy clothes. The question is what is he hiding and why? Then he accepts the challenge of saving Zach Kahler from himself. From that moment the lives of the Kahlers and Travis are intertwined.
While this book is set in 1898 Texas, it read as more than a frontier book. As Bonnie struggles to pull herself out of her grief she sees the children and ranch she has neglected in a new light. By God’s strength and the help of her family and the new preacher, she prepares to tackle life again. The only problem is that someone is hurting women at Heaven’s Gates.

This book is about letting go of the past, with all of its mistakes and wonders, and living in today. DiAnn places that lesson in a story that is filled with rich characters. There’s Bonnie learning what it means to live, her little boy Michael Paul who sings his heart out, and her brothers who are learning how to stop being overly-protective of their baby sister. The women who reside in Heaven’s Gates who are trying so hard to leave their former lives behind. And the preacher who can’t forget the unforgivable mistakes he believes he’s made in the past. There are even villains, one who was obvious from the beginning and one who came from an unexpected place.

The story was well crafted and kept me engaged from page one to the end. And it reflected the course life so often takes: three step forward and two steps back. The spiritual threads were also woven into the main story with a deftness that kept me from skipping past those passages.

If you enjoy historical fiction, I recommend this book to you. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.