I found a great addition to your summer reading list:
Over the Moon at the Big Lizard Diner by Lisa Wingate is a charming Texas romance complete with a dreamy cowboy, a large, soulful dog that just won't go away, and a cast of quirky Texans to help our unhinged heroine along her life-changing journey.
While I could cook up my own summary, this one on the back cover is what drew me in:
Big Lizard Bottoms--where getting hitched is a local industry--is not any place Lindsey Attwood, a play-it-safe paleontologist who's sworn off romance, ever expected to find herself. She's here posing as a horse psychology student to help recover dinosaur tracks stolen from a local guest ranch. After only a day at the ranch, things start spiraling out of control. Her horse-therapy horse hates her, she's been adopted by a huge stray dog with a bad reputation, and there's this local rancher who has her all moonstruck. After years of digging around in the past, Lindsey's wondering if it's finally time to see what the present has to offer.
Doesn't it sound like PG fun? Sometimes you just need a light-hearted, kissing only, cowboy love with a mystery thrown in for good measure. Lindsey's character is frustratingly overprotective and borderline neurotic about her 8 year old daughter being in Mexico with her father, but I had to keep reading because I wanted to watch Lindsey let go and evolve. The large, smelly dog that won't leave Lindsey alone is reminiscent of Barnabus from The Mitford Series and adds some light hearted fun into the mix.
Overall, the story is anything but unpredictable - which I didn't mind as I was hoping for a relaxing read - and the ending wraps up almost too neatly. However, the writing is clever, easy, and enjoyable, though I doubt a lot of the dialogue would translate well to film. Yet Over the Moon at the Big Lizard Diner is the perfect summer book and has made me a definite fan of Lisa Wingate.
