Originally Published: 08-30-2020
Jayhawk is a true stand-alone novel by Dorothy Keddington.
Book Details
Jayhawk was published first in 1978 with this first book cover.
I have this book but it’s not in hardcover, but it’s a larger paperback, 9×6 inches with 244 pages instead of the pocket book size of 4×6.5 inches.
This story is written in 1st person, but it’s so well written that you aren’t annoyed with the POV like so many other 1st person written stories.
1978 bookcover
I found another cover edition, published in 1998.
When you look at this book on Amazon, there’s no classification for it because it was published so long ago.
It could be called a contemporary romance or even a romantic suspense novel as there’s a mystery that has be solved right from the beginning!!
One of the characters is an American Indian so it could also be named a western romance too.
No matter what genre it is, it’s still a well-written story about finding love in the most unlikely of places.
It’s called Jayhawk because the main character’s Indian name is Jayhawk.
Book Summary
This is the story of Angela Stewart and Jay (Jayhawk) Bradford.
Angela was invited to her best friend’s ranch for the summer, and what she finds is a love that was written in the stars.
Angela and Jay meet completely by chance. He’s happens to be the cousin to her best friend, Janet. Janet has talked about her family till Angela felt like she knew them all. But when she meets Jay (Jason) Bradford, she knows that Janet has never spoken about him.
And the beginning of the story is a fast-paced beginning that tells us why Janet had never mentioned her cousin to her.
And it’s the way that Angela and Jay are thrown together in a mystery that they both must solve.
You see, Jay’s father disappeared the week before Jay was born and his death or missing persons had never been solved. And because Jay has come back to the Triple J to find out what happened to his father, someone is trying to silence him.
And Angela gets embroiled into the mystery as she came early to see Janet and her family.
On the way to the ranch, they share secrets and thoughts and get to know each other really well long before Janet can change or influence Angela in any way of thinking.
And it’s because of that encounter that Angela is not swayed by Janet or her brothers in what they may think of their cousin.
But what they find out is a sad story of loss and misunderstanding and not willing to open up to the ones that you love.
And the only way to explain the rest of this story would be to give a ton of spoilers, so I’m just going to tell you to go and read it!
Conclusion
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I found this book when I was in my early teens and read it years ago. And it’s the type of story that all I did was read the first chapter and I remember the whole story and how it affected me.
The story is about acceptance and learning to love your family despite the differences and difficulties that they may have and do.
It also has my favorite quote right at the end, the one that I think about when I get frustrated at the amount of details that authors put into their books and I wish that they would follow this author’s example.
Here’s the quote: “His earth colored eyes reached deep into my soul and read every trembling thought. We both knew the time was now…. The winds purred softly in the pines. The forest birds grew still, and the mountains bore silent witness to our love.”
This book shows that you don’t need to have details in your story to be a good story. You can still have a wonderfully written story with all the elements that you need to be a story that you can’t put down.
This story is definitely one that I’ve reread again and again over the last 30yrs!!!
