Anyplace But Here is the fifth book in Ms Hutton’s Oklahoma series. I have not read the previous volumes, and the copy we at RRM received was labelled an ARC, but actually a manuscript copy of the work that is to be published which means things might change.

One of the things that I have learned has a place in romance literature is where we have the heroine who is beset upon be her villainous spouse and flees for a new life. In that new life she meets her hero. In my writing group, I have one author who uses this plot exclusively. This is a plot that can certainly work, but it is better when it is not forced, I find, and to me, Anyplace but Here is very much forced on us.That we are introduced to our villain who is given one dimension at the beginning would seem to suggest we will never see him again.

Unfortunately we do see the villain again and when we do, there are contradicting character traits from when we meet him to when we see him again. Such as this takes me, a reader and a writer, immediately out of the story but Ms Hutton had already done so. She places most of her story in Galveston Texas, not Guthrie Oklahoma. I have visited Galveston once, and recall that it is the sight of America’s worst natural disaster in terms of death. This story takes places a few short years after as if nothing happened. The historian in me, wondered why no mention of the Galveston flood. Then the abundance of cars in 1907 in Galveston as well as Guthrie. A time when Cars were not so prevalent and roads that they can easily travel upon as well, and certainly automobile cabs were not. Yet they are all about it would seem, throwing me out of the story again. There were other issues as well. The Harvey Girls are used as a plot device, but I feel Ms Hutton explained the origination of these institutions far too many times, and well travelled individuals who would have known of them during the period, seemed to have no idea about them. We also have an issue with the time frame, where the end can not be possible if one uses ones fingers to count how many weeks and months are occurring throughout the story.

To the care and crafting of the story itself, the plot, as mentioned follows that fleeing heroine motif. Our flawed hero (who has a damaged leg when we meet him and convenient to mention it, but when he walks, climbs, etc, doesn’t seem to trouble him) seems to have thoughts that a romance hero might, but as I am a man, some of his ideas and words rang very false. Further to establish himself and his future legacy when the book ends, our hero has the chance to show that he is competent in a new profession, yet the plot moves him away before he can prove himself, and then, only by happenstance, does the solution to a problem that directly involves him is solved at the end of the story, not by his own efforts. Not establishing that he is destined to succeed at a new profession.

We also see often little hints that the entire family of the Hero’s seem to be a basis of perhaps the other four novels before this one. Each person in this extraordinary family having a romance worthy of an entire novel. Coincidence abounds, and even more so when the Hero and the Villain have crossed paths before making the love story between the Hero and Heroine even further troubled.

Some of the novel reads right. Shame as a concept of the times, certainly works. Other things do not, such as when our Heroine at the beginning of the novel decides enough is a enough but is sure that her preplanned escape route will be valid no matter when she chooses to leave. (Parts of the plan would work, but other parts would not be always available to her, I would believe.) Then last, our Heroine so abused by the Villain, gives herself sexually to the hero. Not only trust issues but the psychology of abuse and sex, which can take many years to overcome, is dealt with well before the novel has resolved all its parts. I am not one to write many sex scenes unless it is integral to the plot and I think this could have gone either way. That the heroine has been so abused, I think it a fantasy for her to be resilient enough to even allow a man to touch her without obvious hesitancy. Having a sex scene raises the steaminess of the content but I found it detracting from the story. Another instance where I was forced out of my suspension of belief.

The hero, from the viewpoint we glimpse when he is the primary character, also decides to fall in love with our heroine, knowing that everything about her was a lie. So that he really only has her looks (the most beautiful woman of all Galveston and thus Guthrie most likely also) as the sole reason to fall in love. I should think most readers would appreciate more reasons for a man to drop everything to pursue a woman.

For those reasons I can only say that this book strikes me as not more than a good read. A middle of the road read. Too many things that I can’t relate to as well as the characters that are created unable to relate to either. My Caveat is that those who like to see how a woman overcomes her personal villain and finds a hero to live with for the rest of her life, than this may indeed be a read for you, and certainly if you wish to finish reading the last of the Oklahoma series by Ms. Hutton. ( )