A Worthy Pursuit Books in Order

The A Worthy Pursuit world blends frontier adventure with a found-family story built around three unusual children and the adults determined to protect them. It begins with Charlotte Atherton, a former headmistress who has walked away from a prestigious academy rather than hand her charges over to people she does not trust. Tucked away in a remote Texas hideout, she does her best to give her students a stable home while keeping one step ahead of a powerful grandfather who believes his granddaughter is his property.

Enter Stone Hammond, the most respected tracker in Texas, hired by that same grandfather to retrieve what he believes has been stolen. Stone expects to confront a scheming kidnapper and instead finds a woman with meticulous paperwork, a fiercely protective heart, and three children who clearly see her as their mother. The job that was supposed to be simple quickly becomes tangled as Stone weighs his duty against what he sees with his own eyes.

The main novel unfolds as a chase story and a slow-burn romance. Charlotte and Stone must move constantly to avoid danger, all while teaching a prodigy with perfect memory, a gifted musician, and a spirited tomboy that they are more than pawns in adult games. As secrets about the children’s pasts come to light, the pair wrestle with what constitutes true guardianship and whether love, not blood, is what makes a family worth fighting for.

A connected novella, The Husband Maneuver, lets readers revisit this world from a fresh angle. Years after the events of the novel, a ranch foreman who once played a supporting role is preparing to strike out on his own, unaware that his boss’s daughter has spent years quietly plotting a future with him. Knowing her time is running short, she decides to take matters into her own hands, attempting to nudge him toward a proposal before he rides away for good.

Together, these stories explore the idea of pursuit in several directions. There is the literal tracking of runaways across rough country, but also the pursuit of justice, of a child’s safety, and of a hesitant heart that does not believe it deserves happiness. Readers who enjoy rugged settings, capable heroines, and heroes who must rethink what honor looks like in messy situations will find this corner of Witemeyer’s Texas a satisfying place to linger.