Word Gets Around by Lisa Wingate

The thing that first drew me to this book was the cover. Ironically its not the cover pictured here. The two are very similar though and the girl is the same. To me she seems very approachable and down to earth, not the usual cover heroine who is too beautiful for words. But enough about the cover and on to the actual story.

Word Gets Around follows two main characters of Nate and Lauren. Lauren is a girl originally from Daily, TX who because of a terrible accident in her past, finds it hard to return to her home town. This is actually quite the shame as she is a natural "horseman" or as others know it, a horse whisperer. Her father finally convinces her to come back and train a horse for a movie the town is resting their hopes on. But she meets Nate, and starts to fall for him, but can't decide if she can get over her past.

Nate is a script writer who because of a hard past is a friend to Justin Shay, all powerful conceited movie star. While he tries to help Shay out, this may be his last attempt to work with him. Shay wants him to develop a screen adaptation of "The Horseman" and also help with a home being built for foster kids. Nate views the project as hopeless since Shay has drug addictions and is known to be flaky. However, after meeting the people of Daily he becomes determined to do the best for the script and project. Especially since he's very interested in impressing Lauren.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It wasn't mindless but it wasn't a deeply complicated book either. It was a nice relaxing book. Wingate tells the story easily and from the point of views of both Nate and Lauren. My only complaint about her writing would be the way she writes accents. I absolutely detest the way she chose to do this. The way she words her accents make her characters sound idiotic or stoned. Luckily the accents don't come up too often.

To note, even though I didn't find it advertised as such, this book has Christian overtones. They're not in your face type of mentions but they are a key element in the novel. Some of the mentions are used to help the characters grow and while the novel only spans a little over a week the growing is not awkward or rushed.

Its a good novel for seeing character development, small town fun, and an easy playful romance. I wish there was a sequel but I didn't see one listed. I definitely would like to see more of the story and these characters.

Word Gets Around
Copyright 2009
363 pages
It also includes a few pages of discussion questions.