A Creed in Stone Creek

March 15, 2011
Practically the first person Steven Creed meets on his arrival in Stone Creek, Arizona, is county prosecutor Melissa OBallivan. He plans to purchase a small, rundown ranch and settle down with adopted son Matt, the five-year-old, orphaned, only child of his best friends, Zack and Jillie, near his cousins, the McKettricks of (Indian Rock. Steven, a crackerjack defense attorney, used to spend his summers with his father and cousins on the family ranch in Lonesome Bend, Colorado, and the rest of the year in Boston with his mothers wealthy and influential family. He has no clue about how to raise a child, and Melissa has commitment issues, although she enjoys children. Miller excels at creating extended-family dynamics in an authentic Western small-town setting and richly populating her stories with animal as well as human characters. This first installment in her Creed Cowboys contemporary romance series (Creeds Honor is due in June 2011) merges her extremely popular Creed and Stone Creek series as it introduces yet another branch of these endearing clans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)