Hello Friends,
I am so excited to share this one with you, I apologize for my absence lately. I am finally recovering from the holidays. I hope to share more with you over the next year and be more active on my blog. There are so many exciting books out there.
Book Description
Dorothy Bednar is living a life she despises. Forced to work as a double-dealing saloon girl, Dorothy has finally had enough. The next train out of town is her ticket to freedom, and Dorothy jumps aboard without a thought for where she’s going—until she meets a kind woman aboard the train. Her fellow passenger was originally traveling to Colorado to marry a man she’d never met, but her cold feet offer Dorothy the perfect opportunity to set up roots somewhere new. Dorothy soon finds herself posing as the mail-order bride—after all, marrying a stranger can’t be worse than what she left behind.
Young Colorado lawyer Ronald Smith is astonished when he spies the lovely woman who comes to greet him—the woman who is to be his wife. Dorothy is beyond Ronald’s wildest dreams, a kindhearted partner eager to be a homemaker and mother. To Dorothy, Ronald is the most gentlemanly man she’s ever met—a man who makes her feel safe and cherished. What begins as a deception soon deepens into true love, but too soon, Dorothy’s secret past threatens the beautiful life she’s built—a life that feels truer than anything she’s ever known.
My Review
First off, Dorothy's brother is the absolute worst. He uses her to cheat others and doesn't care what it is doing to her. I hate abusive scum like him in fiction and in real life. That being said, for my venom to be incited over a character means that the author has me hooked.
Dorothy, on the other hand, I love. She is looking for freedom and gets herself on the train while her brother is tied up with the law. She runs into a mail order bride with cold feet, money, and a willingness to help. Because of this she is able to escape with a mission, deliver a note explaining that the mail order bride is not coming to the local lawyer, easy, then she can move on. to parts unknown and escape her brother. Then she meets the groom - Ronald Smith.
Ronald treats her better than she has ever been treated and has the intention to court his mail order bride in order to give her the chance to make her choice. Dorothy is faced with little opportunity to tell the truth and has a bit of desperation in that she doesn't have the means to move on. What ensues is a lovely story of people that have been hurt that get to know each other and in spite of a few mistruths, what they find in each other is honest and real.
I loved this book from beginning to end and Carolyn Twede Frank is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine. The characters were complex and real.
Author Bio from her website
I grew up in Payson, Utah. Ever since elementary school I have loved to write. In junior high and high school I was on the newspaper staff. My senior year, I even had my own column: Carolyn’s Corner. While attending USU as a freshman, my journalism teacher, in an effort to “prepare me for the real world of writing," tore down my work to the point that I gave up, dropped my minor of journalism, and concentrated on my other love—biology. I graduated with a BS in Horticulture and an MS in Botany and went on to start my own business in a totally unrelated field: manufacturing puppets. In 2006, after having raised my five kids and growing my business to a point of being viable to sell, I rediscovered my love of writing. I have since sold my manufacturing business and I spend a good portion of my time writing, or helping my grandkids and my garden grow. I now live in Kaysville, Utah.
Oh, and I love the color yellow