Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

In Cynthia L. Clark's Being Laramie Buchanan, after earning her art history degree in Boulder, Laramie Buchanan takes a gallery job while grieving the loss of her mother, Maggie, and the absence of Vick Varela, the man who vanished after asking her to follow him to North Carolina. When Vick returns as the fiancé of gallery client Talia Corona, Laramie must handle his renewed attention alongside her father Joseph’s collapse over a buried Wyoming secret involving Austin Miller. A yoga retreat at Crescent Moon Ranch offers distance, where quiet ranch hand Chance Griffin offers Laramie a different future. Her search into an old cabin tied to Scarlett O’Banion’s death soon places her in danger that links the past to her present.

In Being Laramie Buchanan, Cynthia L. Clark is extremely thoughtful in her balance of heartening and jarring moments. Clark fleshes Laramie out fully, and she is easy to like. Her kindness includes self-worth, and this is her best character quality. Offers are tied to old romantic history and a hard 'no, thank you very much.' I love Chance, who helps people in plain, practical ways. His work with children at the ranch shows generosity that belongs specifically to him. Clark writes with prose that is pure cinema, from a formal fundraiser beside a Picasso exhibit at The Frankford Art Gallery, to the Crescent Moon Ranch and its old boundary cabin linked to the Scarlett O’Banion legend. This is an excellent addition to Clark's Boulder Girl canon, and readers who enjoy contemporary women’s fiction set in the Centennial State will adore this book. Very highly recommended.