March 4, 2022

Sacred Truths:
The Back Side of the Mountain
Linda Kendall McLendon
WRB Publishing (2022)
ISBN: 978-0990904090

Sacred Truths Are Revealed in Satisfying Conclusion to McLendon’s Trilogy

At long last, Sacred Truths: The Back Side of the Mountain, the final volume of Linda Kendall McLendon’s trilogy, has been published. In the previous books, Unintentional Lies and Accidental Lives, we watched Catherine DeLong try to piece back her life after her husband, James, was killed in a tragic car accident. After buying a farm in Florida and immersing herself with animals to love and care for, Catherine’s world began to get better. Then Zane Wheeler entered her life and she found herself struggling with her feelings for him. What she didn’t know was that Zane had secrets of his own, and some of those secrets concerned Catherine’s dead husband. The first two novels’ titles were appropriate for everything that happened as we discovered a string of lies Catherine was told, although they were told to protect rather than hurt her.

Now, in Sacred Truths, aware of all the lies, including that her husband faked his death, Catherine has to decide what her life will be like going forward.

Of course, by now the reader has come to dislike James, although at times I admit feeling a bit of pity for him. But Zane is just so much more of a romantic lead. He’s the strong mountain man any middle-aged woman would long for. He has hurt Catherine as well by covering up the fact that he’s worked in security for the government and knew about James’ lies all this time, but Catherine also knows that he legitimately loves her, and the reader wants her to end up with him.

Before that can happen, however, Catherine has to deal with her past, make sense of her string of confused emotions, and come to the realization that she and Zane are not so very different since Zane discovers he has also been lied to for most of his life.

To say more is to give too much away, but I will say that McLendon does an excellent job of looking at all sides of these situations. She has created complicated webs of deceit for her characters, but at the same time, she makes us feel sympathy for them since none of them really acted out of spite but rather out of stupidity or from their own weaknesses or a misguided sense of what was best. The exploration of all these feelings is done superbly and leads to healing, acceptance, forgiveness, and ultimately, a place where love can blossom again.

On top of all that, McLendon is a beautiful regional writer. She knows well the places she writes about, and she lets us see them through her characters’ eyes in ways we could never appreciate on our own. The novel takes place partly in Florida and partly in Montana. Florida’s small-town beach communities are described lovingly with nostalgia for a past that has been replaced by busy tourism. Montana is described in terms that make the reader’s whole body relax the moment Catherine arrives there. One of my favorite sentences in the book occurs when Catherine and Zane are on their way to his family’s ranch. “It was going to be a beautiful evening to drive toward his past and their future.” We feel a sense of peace in these scenes, but we also feel Catherine’s own sadness in reaction to the plight of the Native Americans who once owned this land. McLendon tenderly ties in Native American connections for the characters, and ultimately, renders the Native Americans a fictional justice when the white man’s ranch ends up belonging to a Native American couple.

If you love an old-fashioned love story with added depth, beautiful scenic vistas, and some complicated plot twists, check out this trilogy by Linda Kendall McLendon. If you’ve already read the first two books, I don’t have to tell you that you’ll want to read Sacred Truths. In fact, you’ll probably want to go back and read the entire series and relive your time with these old friends, whose lives have been blown about like tumbleweeds, but have now finally come home to rest.

For more information about Sacred Truths, visit Amazon.com.

— Tyler Tichelaar, PhD and award-winning author of When Teddy Came to Town