Cinderella’s Boot by Darlene Franklin
At its heart, Cinderella Boot is a story about second chances, and change is the engine creating that chance.
“Cinderella,” Cynthia Ellen Cooper, left her fiancé at the altar four years ago—to work on a sheep station in Australia. She wanted to spread her wings before marriage tied her down forever.
Keith never recovered from the deep wound Cynthia dealt him. After graduation from vet school, he returns home to work in his father’s practice—where Cynthia now works as a pet groomer and vet assistant.
The former couple forms an uneasy working truce. Cynthia soon realizes she loves Keith more than ever and wonders if she can win back his truck. Her pastor suggests she study the life of John Mark. the gospel writer and companion to the apostles Peter and Paul.
Mark ran away from his responsibilities, too—he left Paul and Barnabas in a lurch during their first missionary journey. Paul refused to have anything further to do with the young man. Years later, however, Paul described Mark as his companion in the ministry, and at the end of his life, asked for Mark specifically because he was helpful to him.
Cynthia starts at that point: she makes herself helpful to Keith. Not only in the office, but even in his social life. She takes him to new, local restaurants for him to decide on the location for his date with of their patients.
Since Cinderella’s Boot is a romance, the answer to “will they?” is a given. I’ll let you read the book to discover the answer to “how will they?”
My point is—Keith and Cindy’s second chance at love came as they changed. When his attitude changed. When she became a servant.
My second chance at better physical health started with my attitude. I decided to work, whether or not it hurt, whether or not I thought I could. If the therapist challenged me to try, I did. Now I can walk, at least until my lungs give out. I can lift my arms higher than in five years. I can sit up from a laying down position and get into a car.
Believe it or not, those aren’t as simple as they seem for someone in a wheelchair.
One of the many things I praise God for—every day is a new beginning. Today I don’t have to repeat yesterday’s failures!
Bio:
Best-selling hybrid author Darlene Franklin’s greatest claim to fame is that she writes full-time from a nursing home. This year she expects to reach fifty unique titles in print and she’s also contributed to more than twenty nonfiction titles. Her column, “The View Through my Door,” appears in four monthly magazines. Her most recent titles are Capturing the Rancher’s Heart, Romancing the Ranger, and Cinderella’s Boot.
Links:
Twitter: @darlenefranklin
Cinderella’s Boot:
Cynthia Ellen Cooper—known affectionately as “Cinderella”—left her wedding boot in the dust when she ran away from her wedding to work on a sheep station in Australia. Four years later, she’s back home—and so is her ex-fiancé, now a DVM from Oklahoma State University. They reach a truce and work side by side in his father’s animal clinic. Cyn soon discovers she wants more—but she has to battle bad history and a demanding pet owner for Keith’s attention. How can Cinderella find a second chance at love?
PURCHASE CINDERELLA’S BOOT HERE
Hi Darlene, I love your attitude. I did a pain course to help learn to deal with chronic pain. I know until I got the official diagnosis I was really struggling. Once I got it from the pain specialist (and more) I felt like a huge weight had lifted as I knew what was wrong, it was real and that I needed to accept it. I still suffer the same pain and probably higher than it was when I was first diagnosised but I cope better (most of the time there are times it gets the better of me). I… Read more »
Jenny–Exactly. We can either wait for the pain to go away–which it doesn’t–or we can decide to live with it. I still complain, unfortunately–complain, then go on working unless it’s super bad.