The Soldier's Newfound Family

Texas Twins #5

by Kathryn Springer

When he returns to Texas from overseas, U.S. Marine Carter Wallace makes good on a promise. To tell a fallen soldier's wife that her husband loved her. But widowed Savannah Blackmore, pregnant and alone, shares a different story with Carter—one that tests everything he believes. He brings Savannah back to the Triple C ranch, where family secrets—and siblings he hadn't known about—await him. Now the marine who never needed anyone suddenly needs Savannah. Will opening his heart be the bravest thing he'll ever do?

Genres: Love Inspired, Romance, Christian Fiction, Fiction, Christian, Christian Romance, Contemporary

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

Kathryn Springer grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, where her parents published a weekly newspaper. As a child, she spent many hours sitting at her mother’s typewriter, plunking out stories, and credits her parents for instilling in her a love of books – which eventually turned into a desire to tell stories of her own.

After a number of busy years, when she married her college sweetheart and became a stay-at-home mom, Kathryn rediscovered her love for writing. An unexpected snow day from school became the inspiration for a short story, which she submitted to Brio magazine. She went on to publish over a dozen more short stories for Brio, but it wasn’t until her youngest child started school that she decided to pursue her dream to write a book. In August 2004, her Love Inspired® debut novel, Tested by Fire, was published.

Fast forward to today and Kathryn has written over thirty novels. She lives on a lake in northern Wisconsin where she enjoys long walks in the woods and the change of seasons (although sometimes she wishes the "change" between winter and spring didn't last quite so long!) When she isn’t at the computer, you’ll find her spending time with family and friends, paging through cooking magazines or sitting in the sun. A really, really good day includes all three! If you want to know more, follow her blog Table Grace. . .thoughts and musings on living a life with nothing artificial added.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
There were a number of things that didn't add up in the book, and even some editing issues with words randomly missing from sentences...but somehow it was heartwarming anyway. It was a bit of a challenge to pick up near the end of a complicated series, but I managed to figure out what was going on, and will definitely consider reading more of the books.
*peeve warning: really, don't look at the cover. It is not representative of the story or the characters...

[Bernie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Soldier's Newfound Family review

The Soldier's Newfound Family is the fifth sweet Christian romance in the Texas Twins series written by author Kathryn Springer.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This relationship was the most rushed...but it was a good, sweet story.

[Lauren Meissner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute 😊

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't so sure about Carter at first, especially how he held himself apart from his family, including the siblings he'd grown up with. And, with his 'duty' towards Savannah, he came across as slightly overbearing. Though, he did mellow out, so that's good.
I liked Savannah, especially that she clung to her faith, and the good things her grandmother had taught her even in the difficult times. I particularly loved the advice to 'count to 10' when we're frustrated . . . but instead of just numbers, count blessings!
I feel like the romance was a bit rushed. Perhaps that's a product of my age, but I am finding I don't like the 'meet and sweep them off their feet within a month' trope as much anymore.
I did appreciate the little hints we were given (if what I'm reading is actually a hint rather than me just reading way more into something than the author intended!) about what happened to keep the family estranged for so many years, but my GOODNESS! You definitely need to have the next book in the series ready to read right away after this one, because that was a pretty big cliffhanger upon which to end this one!
(3.5 stars)

[Lindsey (Books for Christian Girls) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a mini ‘Books For Christian Girls’ review. It is not a full content review and will not receive one. These mini-reviews are years old and just for clarity on the rating the book received on Goodreads.

3/20/2013-
"Content wise, Carter has flashbacks from the war, but there are not detailed."

2/7/2020-
Mentioned in a recent video that I would be unhauling this series after rereading it.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay...yeah. Let's go with "okay."

So Carter gets back from his tour and is immediately ambushed by his siblings who have some big news they decided NOT to share with him for the past 5 months. And they wonder why he has always held himself a bit apart. Wow.

Warning, SPOILERS AHEAD!!! lol

So Carter gets back home and learns that he has not one, but TWO new siblings. Both his sister and his brother found out they had identical twin siblings their father never told anyone about. Not only that, but they got some family drama going on when they learn their lying father was previously married, and divorced from the other two twins' mother, who is conveniently in a coma for the majority of the book. So she's no good for answers. And their dad has disappeared, working on a mission trip and falling off the face of the planet. Of course the police are no help.

This whole book is Carter juggling his personal feelings. Full stop. I could literally stop right here. But I won't.

Seriously, he gets home and has to deliver a message to his now dead friend's wife. She, it turns out, is pregnant and her 'husband' left her and then went into basic training before being deployed with Carter. He didn't even know about the baby. And now she is paying off his debts, trying to get enough hours to be able to afford to live while her doctor is telling her she needs more rest because she is not listening to her own body and its needs.

Carter has to adjust his views as he comes to terms with the fact that the woman and the life his friend was telling him about during their tour was nothing like he expected. Oh and she's being tossed onto the street and has an A$$hat for a boss. He promised to keep care of her, and so he will. He offers her a place to stay, the place his sibling is forcing him to go to. Misery loves company right?

What gets my goat is the little conversation Carter has between his known sister and his 'new' sister. I just want to point out that Carts has known about this woman for less then a week. His siblings hauled his ass out to their ranch to force family bonding time instead of giving him time to process the news. Or process being home after he's been at war, came under fire, and held his best friend in his arms while he died. The f**k? No, they want him to magically be a part of this new family they have been building for 5 months WITHOUT EVEN TELLING HIM IT EXISTED. I think Carter was handling the situation expectationally well given the circumstances. I would have ripped some people a new one and probably left with the amount of flak he is getting from his 'family.'

Anyhow, the conversation. What's-her-name shows up at the ranch, taking Carter up on his offer for shelter and peace of mind, and his 'sisters' are giving him a hard time. He UNDERSTANDABLY apologizes for inviting someone they don't know to their home in order to give her a place to stay WITHOUT asking or telling anybody. And his new sister gets all p!ssy and says that he should think of her as family and her place is his place...only it's her mom's place... But girl, he has known you less than a week! You are lucky he is such a good man that he is actually showing up and TRYING. And in my family, you better tell me if you are inviting someone I don't know to my house!!! To stay no less! Particularly if I just met you!!! Yeah. Team Carter. lol!

Sigh...that conversation just really irked me.

So Carter is trying to figure out where he fits in all of this while he and what's-her-face (I am writing this 3 days after I read it and already forgot her name. Clear signs she's a stereotype Christian romance character) are trying not to fall in love during the rather minute time they spend together...yeah.

I do like how much religion Kathryn Springer shoves in there while still making it feel pretty natural. We can thank what's-her-face. She's a christian spirit and carries that right through the book so it doesn't seem weird or sudden, like it was tacked in as an after thought as many Love Inspired books tend to feel.


So all in all, it was a decent little read. It wasn't mind blowing or revolutionary. It was just a decent fluff piece for camping. Easy to put down, but also easy to pick up. High praise for such a book.

[Anna Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reviewed this in 2013 and gave it *ONE* star.
The review is below.

However, this month (2022) I'm reading the ENTIRE 'Texas Twins' series, and... well, I wasn't gonna go any further with it than book #4, as I saw the one star review (and dislike Hart's writing IMMENSELY)... but then my kids ran in the other room and said, "You HAVE those books, Mom. Both of them!"

So I thought, "Finish what you start..." and took a deep breath, and re-read this.
And I'm so glad that I did.

First - THIS IS NOT A STAND-ALONE BOOK. Which is mostly why I gave it one star, last time I read it. You come in with just this, and you'll be so lost, you'll hate every moment.

If you're reading the series, however? EVERYTHING makes sense. And *FINALLY* there's an author in the mix who is willing to *write* the characters from all of the previous books, not just tell about them, peripherally. Springer weaves everyone together, and does an amazing job of giving them all personality and purpose. The Teen Group is *finally* back. The youth are in the story, again. Something actually HAPPENS with Sadie/Jeb. Something actually HAPPENS with Belle.

More, Carter is THE MOST likeable male character, to date. And I hate Marines, so... that's *REALLY* saying something. But his anger at God has far deeper meaning, because of the bombing and losses that he's had than any other 'loss' in the series. His nobility and sense of humor, his interest in people outside of him (the teen guys)... Jack, Ty and Gray and Landon never truly got engaged with people the way Carter has. SO MUCH better with Carter on the scene, even if he is the reluctant hero.

Savannah is lackluster, but she's really not important to the story, even if she *IS* the heroine. Mostly this is about the bigger picture, and how Carter *does* fit into it, even if he thinks he doesn't, as a half-brother (maybe less).

Kathryn's writing isn't *quite* as vividly beautiful as Arlene James', but she's darn close, and I really enjoyed the story, this go-around. Definitely glad my kids pulled the books out of the boxes and insisted I kept with the series.

(((below is the 2013 review.)))


2013 Review:

I'd just read Springer's "Tested by Fire", and absolutely LOVED it. So much so that I drove all the way to New Salem (at Halloween time, and it's skeery enough there with the witches the REST of the year!) to get six more of her books. Because in "Tested by Fire", for the first time in the history of EVER, the Bible was an intricate part of the story. Verses weren't just platitudes, they were LIVED, they were woven into the characters, they meant something. And I wanted MORE.

Let's start with the basics. WHO comes up with these covers? Carter is 23, has 'wheat blonde' hair, buzzed Marine-requisite short in the book. He 'looks like he could bench press one of the booths in the diner'. The weirdo on the cover has thick, non-regulation black hair and couldn't bench press a paperclip. SO completely wrong, it's not funny.

More, they have Savannah with wheat blonde hair down to her armpits, dressed in some sort of lacy historic bakery garb, r'something. She works in a DINER, has honey-brown hair that doesn't quite touch her shoulders... what the heck?!

The we move to the story. This is book five of a series, and while some writers are able to write series in which the individual novels can stand alone, this is NOT one of them. It's a convoluted MESS of too many characters with too much back-story from too-many previous messes with too many still partially on-going situations.

Basically, Carter comes home from Afghanistan to find out that his sister has a long-lost identical twin. Oh, and his brother ALSO has a long-lost identical twin. And as if that wasn't totally absurd enough, the father of the twin brothers may or may not be his father. And the mother (which is not his mother) is in a coma from some previous book (ad nauseum), so nobody knows WHAT the heck is going on. And no, the insanity doesn't stop there, because his sister's fiancé is now engaged to her identical twin, and his brother is engaged and his sister is engaged and there are children in the mix that we're supposed to keep track of, on top of all of this. And the entire convoluted disaster is all happily congregated at the ranch of coma woman. R'something.

But that's not the story. Oh-ho-ho, no. The story is about Savannah, who's husband knocked her up, left her a week after they got married (fast-acting sex, apparently), joined the Marines, told his buddy Carter about how wonderful his marriage was and how awesome the white picket fence would be when he gets home... only he gets dead, and Carter is supposed to go convey the dude's luvvv to his wife. Who was abandoned by him, is about to be evicted, and is REALLY jaded about men. At which point, Carter drags her back to his clustermuck at the coma-chick's ranch, to add a little more screwball to the mixed drink from Hades.

But THAT'S not all, either. Noooo... we have to add in a psychotic church secretary who may or may not be related to coma-chick but is hiding something (and btw, the young pastor has a thing for her), which we only find out about thru the CHURCH GOSSIP instigated by the heroines of the novel... and how deplorable is THAT?

And don't forget the church fun. Because it's a COMMUNITY church (aka social hour), where we get to have basketball games in the gym, work on cars in the parking lot, have social dinners, and never ONCE actually edify a single gall-durned person. Yes, why yes, the author regressed from impressing me to being EXACTLY LIKE EVERY OTHER PLATITUDE-WEILDING, feel-good crap christianity peddler. SO disgusting.

And she even threw a 'yummy' in the mix. Why not stab me with a spork! ARGH!!! And the writing... what in gawd's name! Page 166, top of the page. Rob drops out of school, gets a job cleaning buildings, goes for coffee before his shift to keep him awake to study. Wait, WHAT? If he dropped out of school and is cleaning buildings, WHY would he need coffee before his WORK shift to study? Isn't he going to, um, WORK? And isn't he no longer studying? Just BAD, BAD writing.

And the ending was left WIDE open so that the convoluted mess could be orchestrated with even more instruments of chaos. After all, we've only got six-part disharmony going on... we could add whole SECTIONS of crap to it!!

(((I was really pissed off by this book.)))

And what's worse? I have SIX MORE of her books sitting here, ready to go. Kill me, now. My hope is that this is a LATER work by Springer, and that she didn't labor intensively on 'Tested by Fire' (her first novel) and then immediately sink into the status quo of crap that's now 'Inspirational Fiction'. But being cynical... this probably isn't going to end well for me.

[Barbara Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another sweet installment in the Texas Twins series. I wondered how this one would play out. Carter is a bit of a wild card in this series. The others are twins who were separated early in life. Carter is the younger half-brother who came into the picture after the separation. Kathryn Springer did a great job bringing him to life and his personality was exactly what I had expected. Brooding.. burdened with the ravages of combat.. and over protective of anyone he felt needed it. Savannah is one of those who need it, but she doesn't want it. She is not interested in being someone's project or obligation. Poor Carter struggles with how to fit into his family's life now that the make up had changed and how to fit into Savannah's. But more than that, he struggles with how to allow God back into his life.

[Kassey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great story but it's probably not a book you can get away with reading without having read the others. I bought this at a thrift store and didn't realize it was part of a book series.

I did like that it was a clean Christian romance.

Being married to a US Marine and having Marine friends and family myself, it irked me that they referred to Carter as a Soldier in the book because Marines typically prefer to be called Marines not soldiers. I've seen too many Marines be called soldiers and they usually always politely correct the person that they are called Marines.

[Mary Shreffler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marine Carter returns home a hero but he doesn't want the honor because of his friends death. Rod died but before he asked Carter to tell Savannah that he loved her and promised to take care of her. Carter didn't know the story behind Rods marriage and when he learns of Rods actions he's surprised. Carter also is falling in love with Savannah

[Dorothey Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Soldiers New found family

Coming home after a tour of duty, to find his friends wife.
Savannah was pregnant, had received a letter from the military that Rob had been killed in combat. He wants to help her, and brings her to the ranch to stay in a cabin, more to come.

[Chrissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was so cute :) Only one more to go!

[Sunflower Grammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't say enough about this series. It touched my heart !

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Soldier’s Newfound Family by Kathryn Springer
Texas Twins Series Book 5
Carter Wallace, the youngest and only one who isn’t Belle’s blood, has returned from overseas. He carried a lot more than his US Marines duffel home with him, he had a load-full of guilt. Even though he may have saved three men, he wasn’t able to save his best friend, Rob. He had promised him to check on Savanna when he returned to Texas. He would do what he could to help his friend’s widow. And face all the changes in his family. A family he never felt very close to.

Savanna Blackmore was in quite a situation. Widowed, being evicted and now told by her doctor that the baby she carried was fine but she needed to be off her feet more. Her only option was to take up the offer from Carter, to go stay at his sister’s ranch in Grasslands. She could get use to going from her lonely life to this boisterous family but she couldn’t intrude for long with all their own family issues going on. And if she was around Carter much longer she might fall for him. Or was it already too late for that?

This has been such an exciting series. Each of the five authors so far has added so much to each of their characters and the story. I’m sure that Jillian Hart will pull it all together in Reunited for the Holidays. We have a mysterious church secretary, Bibles and apology notes popping up, missing dad, comatose mom and cute kids and critters. I would advise to start with book one in this series so you get the full picture from the beginning. It has really built up a great mystery for this last book to bring out.
http://justjudysjumbles.blogspot.com/...

[Massanutten Regional Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Avis, Central patron, June 2016, 4 stars:

The Solder's Newfound Family by Kathryn Springer tells the story of Carter Wallace, a U.S. Marine on leave after losing a friend to a roadside bomb. He returns to Texas to take care of his fallen friend's wife, Savannah Blackmore. Savannah, pregnant and wary of her late husband's friend, reluctantly accepts Carter's help and moves into his sister's cabin. While there, both learn lessons about trusting God and each other.

I enjoyed the story, although the almost unbelievable discovery that both of Carter's older siblings have long-lost identical twins was a bit difficult to swallow. All that aside, the developing romance between Carter and Savannah is really cute. It was great to see both of them come to new realizations about God's love and provision, even in the midst of guilt and shame.

This is a short, fun romance that shows how God's grace intervenes and allows us to love. Overall, a good read.

[April Suter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carter is having a tough time dealing with the fact that his family has more than doubled with two sets of twins and a new mother. He promised a fellow soldier that he would tell his wife a message if he is killed so he meets Savannah. Her view of her husband and Carter's view of his buddy are not even close. She is pregnant and he convinces her to go stay at the Colby Ranch to take it easy. As he waits for Belle to wake up from her coma and his new family to make new bonds he may find a new path for his life.

280 pages

[Rachel Sides · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Soldier's Newfound Family by Kathryn Springer was number 5 in the Texas Twins series. It moved the story along and kept the characters consistent with the works of the other authors in the series. This one featured Carter who for obvious reasons felt isolated from the rest of the family. A very pleasant romance with a backdrop of family drama.

[Carole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. Carter the baby is back from a tour in Afghanistan and finds out all kinds of things about his family, the least of which is that they can't find their father and he has more siblings than he knew. Now on to the last in the series.

[Tia · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading about all that drama, it ends like it did, how disappointing. I don't care that it's a series, however, I do care about the novel as a whole and it was bad. The novel was suppose to be about Savannah and Carter and it didn't even cover it, really.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is the little brother Carter, who is getting back from his military service. Finding out about all his new found family and his friend's betrayal? What about the pregnant widow, Savannah, his friend left behind?

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a cliffhanger!! Can't wait for the last book!

[Katelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice story.

[Harlequin Books]

Miniseries: Texas Twins
Category: Inspirational Romance

[June · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it but it had a very abrupt ending. Definitely can't wait for the final installment next month.

[Kim Blanchard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book as was the first 4! Currently reading the 6th and last book of the Texas twins series and can't wait to read the last page to know what happens!

[Eileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mystery continues. New questions with the church secretary Sadie and the mother wakes up!

[Julie Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

An quick, enjoyable feel good read

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

first of the books in this series that I've read. Other than the religious elements, it was very enjoyable. The cliffhanger was killer though.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only one more book in the series and I am happy for all the characters but sad I will be leaving them. It has been a marvelous story full of trials, mystery, love and Gods love.