Review: “Wild Montana Skies”by Susan May Warren

wild-montana-skies Happy Monday! Today’s featured review is of Susan May Warren’s newest release, Wild Montana Skies, that just so happens to kickoff her new series, “Montana Rescue”, a romantic adventure and suspense series set close to Glacier National Park.
This first book is hard to classify as just one type of story because it really has it all: helicopter rescues, action, hiking adventures, romance, family, and stories of reconciliation and faith.

Small fun fact: if you read her summer indie release Montana Fire series, you might hear a few familiar stories and meet some of those characters. It was set in a nearby town 🙂

Bestselling Author’s New Series Delivers Romance and Adventure as an SAR Team Searches for Others–and Finds Themselves
Search and rescue pilot Kacey Fairing is home on leave in Mercy Falls, Montana, twelve years after she joined the military to escape the mistakes of her past. With a job waiting for her as the new lead pilot of Peak Rescue in Glacier National Park, Kacey hopes to reconnect with the now-teenage daughter she sees only between deployments. What she doesn’t realize is that someone else is also back in town.
Ben King has been building his country music career since the day Kacey shut him out of her life. Now all of that’s on hold when his injured father calls him home to help run Peak Rescue until he’s fully recovered. It doesn’t take long, though, to discover his father’s ulterior motives as Kacey Fairing walks into the house and back into his heart.
With Mercy Falls in a state of emergency due to flash floods, Kacey and Ben are forced to work together to save lives. But when floodwaters turn personal, can they put aside the past to save their future?

What an adventure this story was! Here are my favorite things about it:

The search and rescue (SAR) element ~ always action-packed, compelling drama with plenty of surprises in a neat setting.
The music ~ after all, Ben is a country music star! The songs he (ahem, Susan) has written fit so well in the story.
The sense of coming home ~ for both Kacey and Ben, their journey is about coming home and finding themselves. With him, it means reconciling part of his past and his relationship with his father. For her, it means dealing with her past, also, and finding a new normal in her role as parent.
Friendship and community ~ From the romance rekindled starting with a supportive friendship between Kacey and Ben to their friends who play important roles in encouragement and being “on their team”, the whole cast is boisterous and fun. I’m excited to see where the next book takes us with such a strong cast!
Sierra and Ian! ~ you can meet them in the FREE prequel novella If Ever I Would Leave You. We get glimpses of this duo again in this story — and believe me, I was anxious to get to the little bits from their POVs. I didn’t get quite enough, though! The next book should prove VERY interesting. That’s all I’ll say.
Faith is a brave thing ~ it’s an act of faith to trust that God is always in control. This story illustrates that in so many ways. It also weaves in a beautiful story of forgiveness and redemption, showing that God is the only one who can redeem your past mistakes (even though we try to work hard, we aren’t worthy on our own.).