Review from Lisa's Book Cafe:
Excellent...excellent!

After the death of her husband, Angela Cummings only concern was the welfare of her son Josh. But can you forsake true love in a relationship and just be happy with security? After all...Greg was a good man and would always take care of them.

Still, when Cooper Johnson showed up in town, she couldn't deny she was attracted to him. Soon she would find that Cooper owned her heart, but would he want a widower with a son?

Once again Rita Hestand has done an exceptional job of taking a steamy romance and building it into a believable story.

Great job!

Contributed by Cynthia

TITLE: Wandering Heart

Author: Rita Hestand

Publisher: Writers Exchange E-Publishing

Release Date: January, 2005

Blue Ribbon Rating: 5

Format: EBOOK

Angela Cummings is a widow with a ten year old son Josh, and is secretly engaged to politician Greg Thompson. Josh does not like Greg at all. Greg wants to send Josh to military school, and that does not make Angela happy. Greg does not like dogs, hates Angela working the farm, and I really don’t think he loves her. He’s just looking for a trophy wife so that when he becomes Congressman, he can display her. Greg also wants Angela to sell her farm when they get married, but Angela thinks of her farm as home. So when she saw Coop, she asked him to become her farm manager, just for a little while.

Coop was quite familiar with the 250 acres of farmland that Angela inherited from her uncle and agreed to help her, but insisted that she leave him in charge of working the land…and he would train Josh so that if he decided he wanted the land later, he would be aware of how to run it. Josh was very happy to meet Coop because Coop had known his father and he did not hesitate to talk with him about Raif. Josh owns a pet pig named Elmerine and she births nine piglets. I love piglets.

Will Angela and Greg finally get married? Will Cooper leave town when his Harley gets repaired? Will Angela sell the farm as Greg wants? Will Josh ever like Greg?

Several incidents happen that make Coop and Angela be confined to close quarters. The electricity flows and Coop has to remind himself that Angel belongs to another and Angel has to wonder if she loves Greg. She and Greg go to a hotel for the night. Why does she think of Coop all the time while with Greg? The ending of WANDERING HEART will definitely surprise you.

WANDERING HEART has Rita Hestand again at the top of my list of wonderful contemporary writers. This was more steamy than her other novels, but just as emotional. Keep up the great work, Rita. I love it.

y Romance Junkies Reviewer Phyllis Ingram

To order click on COVER!

Title: Wandering Heart

Author: Rita Hestand

Publisher: Writer’s Exchange E-Publishing

Genre: Contemporary

Publication date: January 2005

ISBN: 1920741771

Page Count: 109

Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewer: Chrissy

Cooper Johnson has returned to town after the death of his adoptive father. He had loved working the land of his adoptive parents home, had practically farmed it alone when he was growing up. Secretly, Cooper wants desperately to belong, to be part of this family, to have a home. Cooper finds Angela in the old theatre watching the old movies that both she and Cooper preferred. While they reminisce over old times and talk about their folks, Angela finds herself comparing Cooper’s rugged good looks to her fiancé, Greg’s polished look. Angela and her son, live on the farm that Angela inherited from her Uncle Henry, and between the two of them they’ve managed to do all the work themselves. However, Angela is also busy working on Greg’s campaign and she’s finding it harder and harder to keep up with both. Greg suggests selling the place and moving to town, but Angela loves the farm and so does her son, it’s the only real home he’s ever had. When she runs into Cooper again at the theatre and they end up going out for coffee, she realizes he would be the perfect man to help on the farm and watch her son, Josh, while she’s working. Now all she needs to do is pray he’ll take the position.

One week after asking Cooper to take over as farm manager, Angela is frustrated. She and Greg have interviewed the men who had answered the ad they’d placed, only one of the ten men was acceptable and he would only be unavailable at times because of his own family. Decisions have to be made but could she give up the farmhouse and land she’s grown to love? Or should she give up her job in town, but they’d come to count on the extra money her job brought in. Seeing Cooper pull up on his Harley reinstalls a sense of hope and when he tells her that he’s willing to take the job she has to restrain herself to keep from hugging him. After showing Cooper the lay of the land, she has him settled into the guestroom of her home until she can get the bungalow cleaned up. Angel, as Coop calls her, has gone to bed and is in the middle of a hauntingly beautiful dream when Josh calls to check on her, he’d spent the night at a friend’s house and wanted to make sure she was all right and didn’t need him to come home. Once Josh hears that she’s not alone and there’s a man sleeping in the guestroom, he starts to become agitated until he realizes that she’d also said that Cooper had known his dad, then he becomes excited about meeting somebody that might be willing to talk about his father. The prospect of this situation ticking off Greg, who Josh doesn’t like, is a big plus as well. Angela believes she’s doing the right thing by marrying the prospective congressman, but is that a mother looking for a father for her child or a woman with genuine feelings for a man? And if she really has feelings for him, then why is she so attracted to Cooper?

Once again, Rita Hestand does not disappoint her readers. Wandering Heart is the perfect family romance. Angela, being a single mother for ten years wants to provide a father figure for her son, so she picks the sort of man her parents would have wanted her to pick, even though there is no romance between them. When Cooper rides in on his Harley, she’s torn between the man her mind says is the perfect man, and the one her heart says is the only man for her. Cooper had been attracted to Angela when they were teenagers, that hasn’t changed. If anything it’s more intense now, and watching her date the congressman is the hardest thing he’s ever done. Josh is the ideal ten-year-old, still young enough to get into things but old enough to be on the verge of manhood. ‘Listening’ in on Josh and Cooper interactions with each other gives you insight into this special young man. I developed a fondness for both Cooper and Josh and practically cheered when Angela and Cooper finally got together, I think I went through every emotion there is while reading this book and finally finished it with a good feeling for all of the characters . . . even the ones I initially didn’t like! Wandering Heart is a book well worth reading and one you’ll want to add to your bookshelf to read for years to come.