Head to the frontier for 'Melinda and the Wild West'
BOOK REVIEW
by MELYNDA GASCOYNE Bee Group Newspapers

"Melinda and the Wild West," by Linda Weaver Clarke. Published by American Book Publishing; 260 pages plus author's notes. Age range for book: 16 and older.

For anyone who likes to read classic-styled romance novels that also have a drop of history, this is the book for you: "Melinda and the Wild West, a Family Saga in Bear Lake Valley, Idaho." The story is set back in 1896 in Montpelier and Paris, Idaho, in the Bear Lake Valley area.

Melinda Gamble is the new schoolteacher and has relocated from Boston to teach in the community where her beloved aunt and uncle live. Being termed "headstrong" by her parents, she decides to take the job offered by her relatives in the Western frontier as a way to escape from the city and the life they have forged for her.

This sets about a plan to help others by teaching. From the start, Melinda learns from her new surroundings. Right at the very beginning she comes face to face with Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch in a bank robbery. What a way to start your new life in the wild frontier.

From one of her students coming to class with skunk oil that explodes, to her encounter with a black bear, there's always something for the imagination in the book. The characters grow in their complexity as the story unfolds. From Melinda's relationship with Jenni, the daughter of her widowed neighbor, to Gilbert, Jenni's father and the gentlemen who steals Melinda's heart, it is very easy to picture the scene you are reading.

Clarke blends bits of her family history into this charming tale in the form of the children at the school to members of the community in general. She was able to write about love in a soft fashion, not full of the same type of sexual writing of most romance nov els.

I was first attracted to the book because of the name. After all, the main character and myself have the same first names. But I was impressed with the eloquence in which Clarke spun her story. It was dramatic in some spots and yet contained simply placed bits of humor. I would recommend this to anyone.

Melinda is the first in a four-book series, "A Family Saga in the Bear Lake Valley," written by Clarke. I'm hoping that the other stories are just as interesting as this one. At the end of the book, Clarke has a section of notes in which she explains parts of the story and from where in her family they der ive.