Tenderfoot

In Tenderfoot Corrie Stephens, a writer researching rural life in 1980 happens to wind up--because of a dismal sense of direction --on a cattle ranch northeast of Mount St. Helens. As luck would have it, she arrives shortly before the explosive, deadly volcanic eruption. Her research brings her into contact with J, a hunky widower who owns the cabin she's renting. While you might think two good looking, single main characters might get together right away; not so fast! The story expands on those real-life impediments to mid-life romance: children and emotional baggage. We get to know the characters while learning about life on a cattle ranch. But that's not all! While Corrie and J's emotions are heating up, Mount St. Helens is simmering too. A newspaper writer and a photographer's coverage of the awakening mountain is an important subplot. Corrie is on the mountain with her friends when the massive eruption occurs. The story gives you a visceral feeling of what it must have been like to barely escape alive from the eruption. The author's earlier books have been coming-of-age novels set in eastern Washington. Tenderfoot features a mid-life divorcee as the main character. Even though Corrie has been married for years and has a grown daughter, she experiences falling in love again like a school girl! Mary E. Trimble is unmatched when it comes to portraying the emotional journey of a pure-hearted female (of any age) falling in love. Tenderfoot is a good story. It's full of well-researched fascinating facts about ranching and the eruption of Mount St. Helens. It's a book anyone can enjoy since the language and themes are as wholesome as a John Wayne movie.

I met Mary at a craft fair in Stanwood a few weeks ago. Bought her book last week, could barely put it down. Great story and well written. Definitely would recommend.

I’ve always dreamed of living on a Western ranch. Interesting details and character interactions with the setting and cattle and horse stock make Trimble’s ranch come alive. Suspense builds with harrowing scenes of the historic eruption of Mt St. Helens. A tender love story draws your heart into “Tenderfoot”.

Really liked that the author used real facts! well written and a easy, enjoyable read. met the author in December, nice lady!

With her daughter in college and no one to tie her to home but her dog, Corrie Stephens picks up her life and moves from the hustle and bustle of the city to the quiet countryside where she hopes to learn first hand about ranching and use it in her writing. I had to smile at her first encounter with the "wild west" when she takes a wrong turn and comes upon a herd of cattle crossing the roadway. The rancher owner gives her directions, which she messes up again, and comes back around to that same herd of cattle. It amused me as I, too, am directional challenged. Eventually, she finds out where she's supposed to be, rents a cabin on the ranch and begins her new life. Set in 1980 the year Mount St Helens erupted, Corrie gets involved with the people studying the volcano as the mountain begins to have a series of earthquakes. Although she has no intention of getting involved with the widowed ranch owner, some of our best laid plans...etc. I enjoyed this story. A light read for the romantic part and very interesting in terms of what happened in the days leading up to the volcano's eruption. Eunice Boeve, author of Ride a Shadowed Trail

Corrie is directionally-challenged. In Seattle, it didn’t matter. But then she moves to an Oregon cattle ranch to pursue her new career as a writer. There, everything is north or south, east or west. Her confusion irritates rancher J. He insists on teaching her how to find her way home again. No one foresees how his instruction will help save her life on Mount St. Helens on the day it decides to blow. Tenderfoot is a powerful story on a number of levels: the growing love between a wounded city girl and a lonely rancher, love of family and friends, forgiveness and renewal, all interwoven with the true story of Mount St. Helens’ disastrous eruption. I loved learning about ranching along with Corrie. I admired the wisdom and tenderness of rancher J in parenting his motherless teenage daughter. Mary Trimble brings the mountain’s terrifying eruption to vivid life and ties all the threads together into one satisfying package.

What a great book. I met Mary and she is a very nice person. I really like to read well written stories having to do with my home state.

When I read in the blurb that this tale of reluctant romance was set on a working cattle ranch during the drama of the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980, I was hooked. The book held compelling personal interest -- I experienced the drama of that eruption and ash fall first hand from my home in Richland, Washington, 135 miles due east of the mountain. With that personal involvement, I especially appreciated the way Trimble begins each chapter with a news flash about the state of the mountain that particular day, creating a growing sense of foreboding that I remember well. Although her accounts are attributed to a fictitious reporter and published in a fictitious paper, they ring true to my memory. Her description of the mountain and events relating to the ultimate eruption are vividly portrayed with gripping drama and consistent with numerous factual accounts I've read and watched in the ensuing decades. Even though I was fairly knowledgeable about the topic, Trimble's descriptions and accounts of people who circumvented barricades to be on the mountain before and during the eruption provided welcome new insight. In my opinion, if there were no other reason to read the book, this element would be enough. Trimble also takes pains to deftly portray life on a working ranch, using city girl Corrie Stephens' experience after rehabilitating a run-down cabin on the Circle J ranch for a post-divorce change of scene and to gather material for her writing career. Corrie's insatiable writer's curiosity provides a perfect vehicle for instructive conversations with dashingly handsome owner J McClure and his ranch hands. From the conversations combined with Corrie's adventures, I gained the sense that I too could saddle a horse, pitch hay to herds, de-louse and ear tag a cow, or teach an orphaned calf to drink from a bottle. Not surprisingly, the romance between Corrie and J proceeds predictably, with the usual string of obstacles, many self-imposed. The tension lay not in doubt about the outcome, but how they would overcome those obstacles. I found it refreshing that Trimble was able to convey the power of raging emotions between Corrie and J without explicit scenes. Perhaps for some, the romance will be the main feature of the story. I found it a heart-warming thread for educating readers about ranch life while also reporting on one of the major cataclysmic events of the twentieth century. The combination of explosive emotions and explosive mountain results in a compelling read. The book deserves the acclaim it has received from the Western Writers of America.