My Heart Belongs in the Superstition Mountains

4.5 stars
I really enjoyed this Western adventure. Engaging characters with Camela and Freeland, and a delightful lack of overly descriptive romance! I could comfortably recommend this book even to young teens.

Carmela is a young woman of twenty whose uncle has been exploiting her for years. Her parents died on the trail to California, and she was cared for by kind friends for some months before her closest living relative, her uncle, could arrive to claim her. He, citing unpaid debts her parents owed, and guilting/punishing her into submission, invents a story of her having been a victim of an Indian attack and forces her to tour the country telling the story he invented.

Freeland's a marshal from Tucson and is riding along with a prisoner he is transporting when the stagecoach they are on is robbed. The bad guys leave Carmela and Freeland handcuffed together in the desert and ride off with their loot.

First there's the fight to survive the desert; then, the choice Carmela faces: for the first time in her recent life, she is away from her uncle and able to speak for herself. But how can she break through the habitual lies of years? How can she admit she's been telling an untrue story all this time?

Also: I loved Mrs. Finney!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for my honest review.