SWEETWATER

In this perfect romantic novel a single schoolteacher heads west, falls in love with a rancher and, in the face of forceful opposition, starts a school for Indians. When her best friend also needs a true love, the rancher miraculously produces an identical twin brother. Kate Forbes offers a gentle, delicate reading perfectly suited to the tone of the story. Her soft voice shifts subtly among several dialects and between genders without over-performing any of them. Her schoolteacher is suitably refined, her frontier woman equally feisty. The bad guys are really bad, and the misunderstood bastard shifts from despicable to lovable quite convincingly. By the time the tapes run out, you're ready, but not a minute before. R.P.L. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/MAR 00]