My interest was captured in the very first chapter, when fiesty little Sassy Nightengale gets captures by the Comanche's. Fast forward 5 more years and you begin to get into the plot of this story. Famed Texas Ranger Levi Baylor (who knew Sassy as a kid) finds himself in an Indian village "bartering" for her and her son, Charley (who is quite a fun little character to get to know). Now, with the help of Levi's best friend, Wallace, they must take these two back home to be reunited with family. But along the way they will take in another lady who was taken hostage by the Indians also.

This will be a journey of adventure, danger and exhaustion as these folks travel across country to reach home. I felt like I was taking the journey with them and the author did a great time of making you experience Texas during the 1800's. The love that blossoms between Levi and and Sassy (who is called Rose by Levi) is very endearing, but since they are honor and duty bound to take her back home to her husband, they must guard their hearts. But is it wrong to hope that the Lord can work this out in a way that will bring glory to Him and joy to Levi and Rose? The ending was a little surprising, but good, but also very sad. (Don't want to spoil it for anyone so that is all I am gong to say about the ending.) Looking forward to reading the next story in this series, which is "Hope Reborn".

This is a series of books, that should be read in order because 1) so far they are really good and 2) they pick up a few years after the previous story, so you will lose a lot of background if you don't read them in order. ( )

Hearts Stolen is the second book in this clean romance series but just because it’s clean romance don’t let that fool you into thinking that there are no difficult love issues.

Sassy relies on God and Levi relies on his integrity when they begin to fall in love even though Sassy is still married to her son’s father. Since she doesn’t believe in divorce, and God hates divorce, the only alternative for her will be to return to her husband and a loveless marriage, leaving a man she doesn’t want to live without and who her son thinks of as a father.

It was good to see the struggle that Sassy went through on her journey from the Comanche camp back to her home. She could have run away with Levi, and I’m sure some people would have. I loved that she stuck to her belief in God and her principles.

The main and supporting characters were all very vibrant and alive. They were very entertaining and realistic. I felt like I was there with them. I especially liked the relationship that Sassy’s son had with Levi. It was very endearing.

This was the kind of love story that was hard to put down. It was more than a love story as there was enough action and adventure to keep the story moving forward

Anyone who enjoys the genre of clean romance will enjoy Hearts Stolen. I highly recommend it. I gave it 5 stars out of 5.

Thank you to the author for providing a copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review. A positive opinion was not required. All thoughts are my own.

This review was published on my blog Shelf Full of Books http://kathrynsshelffullofbooks.blogspot.com/2015/01/review-hearts-stolen-texas-... ( )