Category / Historical

by mvbookreviewer

Review: September Moon by Candice Proctor

Format: PaperbackSeptember
Read with: Paperback
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Ivy Books
Hero: Patrick O’Reilly
Heroine: Amanda Davenport
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: October 5, 1999
Started On: September 24, 2010
Finished On: September 25, 2010

Like the book Whispers of Heaven which I reviewed earlier, this story too is set in Australia during the 1800’s.

Amanda Davenport finds herself in the raw primitive land of Australia, left with a feeling of hopelessness when her employer dies from a bout of illness leaving her destitute with nowhere to turn to. Amanda, the daughter of a brilliant scholar back in England had been hired by Frances Blake who had been a botanist to act as his secretary, a post that few women were thought capable of handling back then. However, growing up alone with a brilliant scholar because her mother had died when she had been a mere baby, Amanda had ended up more educated than even most men, because that had been Amanda’s way of vying for the attention of a father who was more mindful of his students and the academics than his only daughter. When her father had died 5 years earlier leaving her with little means to look after herself, Amanda had been forced to seek employment and hence her current predicament where Amanda is forced to find a job in order to survive and earn enough money to return back to her beloved England.

Experiencing the fact that the post of a secretary would be hard to attain, Amanda ends up agreeing to be the governess of Patrick O’Reilly’s 3 children. The one fact that deters her is the fact that the O’Reilly’s live so far in the outback that the land was considered primitive and harsh, and for someone like Amanda who misses the gentle surroundings of England, the mere thought of roughing it out in the outback is a daunting thought in itself. But in the end, her hopeless situation has her agreeing to be the governess of Hannah, Liam and Missy aged between 11 and 6 years old for a period of 1 year after which she would have the means to return back to her home.

When Patrick O’Reilly sets eyes on the tightly buttoned up English woman his sister Hetty had once again hired as a governess for his children, all Patrick senses is a woman who forces down her emotions to the extent that she appears to have a perpetual straight line where her lips should be. But even her buttoned up figure dressed in the ugliest garbs Patrick had ever seen does little to hide her dainty figure and her impressive gray eyes which seems to stare down haughtily at him, a sign classic of the English women.

Patrick, the grandson of an Irish ex-convict had learnt the hard way that dainty women such as Miss Amanda rarely survived in the primitive land to which his heart belonged, and that they would leave sooner or later. Patrick’s mother who had been English had abandoned their family and then he had gone ahead and married Katherine, an English woman whose father had made his fortune in India and had come to invest it in Australia. A 19 year old Patrick had been helplessly ensnared with an 18 year old determined Katherine and in the end her pregnancy had ended up in their marriage. Patrick who dreams of nothing more than owning his own land and having his own flock of sheep and cattle one day couldn’t have been more different from Katherine who had wanted to return to England with her husband in tow and live her life there.

Patrick had tried so hard to please Katherine and ease her longing to be back home. But in the end, Katherine too had walked out when Missy had just been 6 months old. So it was safe to say that Patrick wants nothing to do with Amanda who sets his senses afire and when he sees an answering fire of need reflected in her eyes, it is not long before these two are forced to acknowledge the intense connection between them, reluctant though each may be to do so due to their own reasons.

Amanda had been burned once and is twice shy of letting her baser emotions take over. What Patrick manages to do to her senses with his wickedly dimpled smile that brings a twinkle to his sky-blue eyes complete with his work hardened sinewy body is incomparable to anything she had ever experienced before. Amanda doesn’t welcome the emotions that are invading her body in Patrick’s presence, feelings she has ruthlessly tamped down on for the past 10 years of her life. Propriety and genteel behavior are the two things she steadfastly holds onto, because she is afraid that she would end up surrendering her heart, body and soul to the devilishly handsome man and the primitive land which he calls home.

What I like most about Ms. Proctor’s novels is the fact that she doesn’t provide magical solutions to each problem that comes up within the story. Amanda doesn’t just one day wake up and realize that she loves her harsh surroundings, nor does Patrick’s 3 children take to her like a newborn babe does to milk. Rather Amanda has to work her way and win their affections, and she comes to love them as her own in time. Patrick, a man who is wary of trusting a woman to do right by him doesn’t blindly trust Amanda to stay with him when he knows just how much she  yearns to be back in England. In the end, a love as fierce and binding as the rough Australian outback is what helps them through the dangers and hurdles they have to cross to embrace their happily ever after.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Abe Books

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Whispers of Heaven by Candice Proctor

Format: Paperbackwhspers
Read with: Paperback
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Ivy Books
Hero: Lucas Gallagher
Heroine: Jesmond Corbett (Jessie)
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication:  July 3, 2001
Started On: September 23, 2010
Finished On: September 24, 2010

This story is set in Tasmania in the Australian continent in the 1800’s, a time during which this picturesque island witnessed the most shudderingly brutal excesses of the British convict system according to the Author’s note at the end of the book. I have read a couple of books set in Australia during this time period some of which I have reviewed previously.

Jesmond Corbett (Jessie) returns to her beloved home known as Corbetts Castle  in Tasmania after spending two years studying Geology at the Ladies Academy of Science in London. Engaged since childhood to marry Harrison Winthrop Tate, childhood friend and the only son of their closest neighbors, Jessie is glad to come home even though the thought that her robust and energetic father who had died 3 weeks after she had left to London and wouldn’t be there to welcome her with open arms saddens her.

Anselm and Beatrice Corbett had had 6 children, 3 girls and 3 boys out of which the youngest of each were the only ones who were alive. Whilst Cecil and Reid Corbett had both died horrific deaths, one at the hands of the merciless sea that surrounds the island and the other at the hands of the rogue Aborigines, the sisters Jane and Catherine Corbett had succumbed to the effects of Scarlet fever. Beatrice who was strictly British and upheld the iron control on her emotions that the British were famous for had always let the fact be known that she had adored the 4 children who had died more than Warrick and Jessie, both of whom had always been a trifle wild and harder to bend to the rules of the society.

Jessie knows that no matter how hard she tries to please her mother by molding herself into something she is not her mother Beatrice would never be completely happy or satisfied with her efforts. And when upon her return she lays eyes on Lucas Gallagher, an Irish convict who sets her pulse racing with the danger and wildness that seems an integral part of him, Jessie instinctively knows that Lucas answers some deep calling within her that yearns to be set free.

Lucas is a man hell bent on escaping the harsh life he had had to endure as a convict up until now. Lucas is a man far too proud to ever accept the fact that he is not his own master and the thought that he would practically die as a slave in the wilderness of Tasmania makes him more determined that he would escape or die trying. But when he lays eyes on the beautiful Jesmond Corbett, a woman who is forbidden to him on so many levels within the society he was forced to live in changes everything.

No matter how hard Jessie or Lucas tries to deny the intense connection between them, they find themselves helpless in the need to be with one another. Lucas tries his damnedest to say no to what his heart clamors for when Jessie looks at him with those beautiful blue eyes of hers, but one forbidden kiss flares every need that he has ruthlessly tamped down til now.

Once Jessie had tasted passion in Lucas’s arms, she knows that there is no going back and that marriage to Harrison who was as rigid in his views on the proper behavior of genteel women in the society as Beatrice would mean a slow death for the passionate and vibrant woman that she is. But then again, there is always a heady price one has to pay for indulging in the forbidden desires of the heart and both Lucas and Jessie would have to love and trust one another beyond anything comparable in order to triumph over all obstacles in their way, to embrace a love as fierce as the wilderness that surrounds them.

A story so beautifully written that you cannot help but be ensnared by the magic it slowly weaves on you, Candice Proctor surely knows her stuff with the beautiful characters she creates. I am just sad that she doesn’t write romances of this kind anymore because she is so good at creating the most beautiful love stories and Night in Eden is a testament to her glaringly obvious talent in this regard.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Abe Books

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold by Ellen O’Connell

Format: E-bookeyes
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Self-Published
Hero: Cord Bennet
Heroine: Anne Wells
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: April 9, 2010
Started On: September 13, 2010
Finished On: September 14, 2o10

Rarely do we come across books on Amazon that have received an average rating of 5 stars. This is one such book that has achieved this status, which caught my eye once again whilst browsing through a discussion thread. Reading the synopsis, I immediately knew that this would be my kind of story and I immediately fell in love as soon as I started on page 1.

Anne Wells, has always shamed her family in one way or the other. Having never really bided by the conventional rules of the society and not being a real beauty to make men swoon at her feet, Anne had always stood apart from the rest of them. Elroy Turrell had been the first man who had taken an interest in her and Anne had been whisked off to Chicago to live with her aunt since her father Edward thought that a farmer’s boy was really beneath them. Then had come Richard Tyler, a banker’s son whom she had met in Chicago. Engaged to the  man for 4 years, Anne had broken things off with Richard because she had finally seen the light and knew things would never work between a woman who wanted her independence and freedom from the restrictive rules of the society whilst Richard was of the opposite mindset. The broken engagement had enraged her father much more and eventually he had brought her back home. And then trouble had started when George Detrick, a widower, older than Anne’s father started pursuing her, a man who was fat and greasy with beady eyes and smelled worse.

Edward Wells was delighted by the fact that his daughter could be married off even though Anne made her refusal to wed him pretty clear. Driven into a rage beyond anything Anne had witnessed from her father before, Anne was locked up in a boarded room, given little food than what was necessary, her father’s plan to get her to agree to marriage with Detrick or starve to death. Anne finally manages to escape before she is driven to do just that, and hitches a ride unbeknown to the owners of the carriage. When the storm that had been raging had driven her to seek shelter in a farmstead, little does Anne know that she would sleep through the night to wake up and find herself at the home of Cord Bennet, a man despised and feared throughout her hometown.

Cord Bennet, a man with an unusual shade of light brown eyes, jet black hair with a bronze face that was all angles and plains who emanated a fierceness with his stillness has a soft spot for Anne though he doesn’t admit it. Cord had been the first child of Jamie Bennet’s shocking second marriage to an Indian woman named Song. Though Cord and his sister Marie had been protected from the vicious tongues of the townspeople who didn’t take too kindly to the mixed blooded children, they had been tolerated because the Bennet family had been richer than anyone else in town. But it hadn’t taken long for Cord and his sister to wise up and face the fact that they would always be treated differently than their step siblings.

When Cord hears of the circumstances that had landed Anne at his home and needing his help to get to Chicago to see whether her aunt Clara would once again put up with her, Cord knows that he would help her regardless of the outcome. But when Edward comes looking for Anne with a mob crowd rather than a search party and slaps Anne around to make her admit that the savage and brute that Cord was rumored to be had taken advantage of her and raped her and Anne refuses, all hell breaks loose. Cord who is rumored to have special skills in fighting, acquired during his days living with the Indians is unable to do anything to protect Anne or himself. Beaten to the point of death until he agrees to marry Anne since Detrick refused to wed a “soiled” woman, Anne and Cord make their vows amidst violence that had me reeling. Even afterwards, Cord has to helplessly watch on whilst Anne’s father watches on with the judge whilst the group of bullies Anne’s father had rounded up try and rape her.

It is by a miracle that these two survive the unjust violence that was unleashed on them. Thinking that Cord would die during the days that follow, Anne still stubbornly nurse him through, a man who is black and blue all over and bleeding in his urine. The doctor’s prognosis isn’t good either and its by sheer force of will of Anne that Cord comes through. Thus starts a fragile relationship based on an acquaintance that had been made when the both of them had only been 10 years old, when Anne had come to the rescue of Marie who was been bullied by other girls in class with whom Cord had not known what to do with.

This story is so beautiful on so many levels. Cord, a man who is hated even by his own family and of whom everyone expects and always believes the worst of finds himself with a woman who puts her undying trust in him and his character. Whilst Cord had always expected to live in a quiet corner of town until the end of his days, the unexpectedness of having Anne in his life shakes him to the very core. Sweet yearning and desire unfurls in a man who would sell his soul to keep Anne by his side through eternity, though he knows a woman like Anne is too good for a man like him.

Anne blossoms under the strong and patient man that her husband is. The awareness which Anne has of her husband which she doesn’t even know, slowly kindles and burns into something beautiful that made every scene with Cord and Anne one worth a lot of sighing over. Anne and her zealous for life paints Cord’s otherwise bleak life in colors. A future that had seemed endless with no joy insight is suddenly filled with laughter and joy and togetherness as these two tackle life, its everyday challenges, and taming Cord’s family and the townspeople all in one go.

But Edward Wells, who is seething at the mere thought of her daughter being “forced” to live with that “savage” is livid when Anne refuses to come home and annul the marriage to which Edward had forced her into. His cunning plans rips Anne apart from Cord, just when Cord had come to accept the fact that things between Anne and him were meant to be and was not a temporary arrangement. I so fell in love with Cord, for his gentleness which was his innermost strength that everyone else refused to see, but was so clear to his wife and partner for life. Beautiful ending for a beautifully done story, which makes me yearn and wish for another book by the author sometime very, very soon!

Very highly recommended for lovers of historical and American Western romances. This is a book that is a definite winner, one not to be missed!

Favorite Quotes

(Anne)”Do you know that every time you look at me like that you erase the hurt of at least a hundred times someone said I wasn’t ladylike enough? You make me feel so – female. I think to myself that must be the way a hungry wolf looks at a lamb.”
He moved then, walked to her. She found herself thinking maybe topaz, maybe his eyes are like smoked topaz. This kiss was not tentative, but sure and certain. For months she had dreamed of kisses, but the sensual magic of the firm lips was sweeter than anything she had known to dream about.

Cord fought sleep, wanting to savor this moment and the memories of the day. Anne’s breath fanned across his throat sweetly. I wanted you so much it hurt. She made him feel like the king he was sure she had been born for. He thought of her face as she ran into his arms after the race, the feel of her in his arms dancing in the summer night. Perhaps there would never again be such a day, but he had this one. And he had her – now.
As he finally stopped fighting sleep, he wondered if maybe just occasionally the gods designed a woman fit for a king or a prince and then gave her to an ordinary man. Maybe they did such a thing once in a while, knowing an ordinary man would treasure her more, love her better. Maybe they even let him keep her – for a while.

Whirling in Cord’s arms, Anne was aware of nothing but the floating sensation and the eyes of gold so close to her own and so somber.
“You know, Annie, a long time ago an old man told me beauty doesn’t mean much in a woman. It disappears with age. But he said some women have something better. They have a special glow that lasts all their life and just gets richer. You’re like that. You really shine.”
She could feel her eyes growing moist.
“Don’t cry.”
“I’m not.”
Her hand slipped from his shoulder to his face without conscious thought. He rubbed his cheek lightly against her fingers and kissed her palm. The scandal would last a hundred years, she thought, and willed her hand back to his shoulder. The smile started then, a real smile, teeth flashing oh so white in his bronze face. Her heart soared, and in truth, that night Anne Wells Bennett was not the only one who saw beauty in her fierce, dark man.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Smashwords

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: The Brides of Prairie Gold by Maggie Osborne

Format: E-bookbrides
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Warner Books Inc
Hero: Cody Snow
Heroine: Perrin Waverly
Sensuality: 3.5
Date of Publication: August 1, 1996
Started On: August 28, 2010
Finished On: August 29, 2010

The Brides of Prairie Gold center around the twelve woman who travel to Clampet Falls, Oregon from Missouri as mail-order brides. Wagon master Cody Snow has no idea how he ended up with agreeing to take these brides to their destination. This being the last trip that Cody was going to take, he was also carrying a stash of weapons and whiskey unknown to the brides on board to sell. A journey that was to take a period of around 6 months of their lives through rough terrain and weather, Cody doesn’t know how he is going to survive the incessant problems that seems to crop up amongst his travelers. Accompanying him as his scout is  the enigmatic half-Indian Webb Coate who makes for a pretty interesting character as well.

When Cody lays his eyes on the beautiful Perrin Waverly, the red-hot attraction that flares between them is instantaneous and unwelcome at best. Cody whose dead wife Ellen had betrayed him and got pregnant with another man’s child and died giving birth had left a bitter taste in Cody’s mouth where women are concerned. Cody had vowed that no woman would ever have that kind of power over him and his heart and he had resigned himself to settling down on his own. Perrin was a woman who had made a lot of mistakes in the past. Perrin viewed men as users of women, who always took and never gave anything back. Widowed quite unexpectedly from her jealous husband Gavin Waverly who had left her no means to fend for herself, Perrin had been at the end of her wits as to what to do when Joseph Boyd, Chastity’s wealthy banker had befriended her. In the end, Perrin had offered herself to him as his mistress, an act that had tainted her forever in the eyes of the citizens of Chastity. This journey towards a new life and a new husband was supposed to be her second chance. But life and its unexpected twists had thrown Augusta Boyd, Joseph’s proud daughter who doesn’t want anything to do with the woman who in her opinion had ruined her father which in the end had prompted him to commit suicide.

Needless to say, the journey doesn’t start off well for Perrin or Augusta. Augusta is a character that brings out all sorts of emotions from the reader. She is spoiled to the core, demanding and pretty much thinks of herself to be above everyone else who was performing the journey along with her. Augusta hires Cora to do her bidding, and whilst Cody had ordered that everyone who was traveling with him had to do their share of work, Augusta refuses to lift a finger to do work she deems to  be beneath her. With only 40 dollars to see her through the journey since her father had been completely ruined financially, a fact Augusta had managed to keep a lid on till now, Augusta is scared of not making it through the journey.

Cody as the wagon master has always opted that his travelers select a representative from their group to bring their problems to, so that Cody can only attend to those problems that are deemed unsolvable by the representative. When Perrin draws the paper marked X which effectively makes her the group’s representative, none of the group members are enthusiastic about the fact. They all know of Perrin’s reputation and were doing their hardest to ignore Perrin and not associate with a woman who had fallen from grace.

Cody curses and thanks the fact that being the womenfolk’s representative undeniably put Cody and Perrin into a situation where they could no longer avoid each other. Sparks fly and the atmosphere pretty much crackles with tension whenever Cody and Perrin are together. Though they try to deny the combustive attraction between them, it is inevitable as the rising sun that these two would come together in an explosive manner that pretty much obliterates everything else. When Perrin realizes that Cody has no intention of ever marrying again, but wants to continue their relationship, Perrin knows that she won’t ruin her second chance at respectability even if it means saying no to the man who had effectively captured her heart forever.

I don’t think I can effectively describe what goes through during this tough journey that these brides take to reach their futures and their husbands. The rough and tough journey inevitably toughens them up. There are losses, deaths, squabbles and disease that occur during the space of the journey. Making the journey doubly dangerous is a long term enemy of Cody, who is hell bent on killing Cody and stealing the arms and whiskey that Cody was transporting. And amongst the women is a bride who has an unhealthy obsession with Cody, who thinks that she is the bride meant for Cody who in the end nearly kills the woman Cody loves with everything in his being.

This book is a pretty great read which enriches the reader with the perils of traveling during the 1800’s. Life was tough and hard and people had to toughen up and face life head on if they wanted to survive. The most remarkable change comes out in Augusta, who finally gets what she deserves and a bit more, and in the end this makes her into a better woman, who but in the end loses the man she loves, because she was too proud to think that a half Indian was beneath her.

The story of how Mem, a 28 year old spinster and Webb Coate find each other was pretty interesting as well. Webb who at first smolders at the mere thought of touching the hauntingly beautiful Augusta Boyd, finally finds everything he had been searching for and more in the arms of Mem, the woman who completes him in every way.

I recommend Maggie Osborne novels for those romance readers who require something more than just a man and woman getting together and falling in love. If you want a romance with a bite of adventure, a little bit of mystery and enough passion to knock your socks off, this is a must read.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: The Bride of Willow Creek by Maggie Osborne

Format: E-bookbride
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Ivy Books
Hero: Sam Holland
Heroine: Angie Bartoli
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: October 2, 2001
Started On: August 27, 2010
Finished On: August 28, 2010

This is certainly an unusual story, as are most of the novels by Ms. Osborne. This was the book that I chose to read right after falling in love with Ms. Osborne’s writing style after reading Silver Lining. However, for some reason I read a couple of pages and found my interest straying towards some other book and I had all but forgotten about it until my pile of to-be read Ms. Osborne novels have shrunk into 1 or 2 books. And finally after reading this book, I for the world of me cannot understand why I put this book away because yes, this book is really good.

Ten years have passed since Angie Bartolli then sixteen years old had married Sam Holland. Angie with a formidable father had not been ready to defy him and leave with her then husband for whom her father felt nothing but loathing saying right to his face that Sam would never be able to make anything for himself. Both Sam and Angie had been young, both expecting things from the other that they had not been mature enough to understand or give. Thus Angie had stayed behind, a married innocent, whilst her husband Sam made his way to the West swearing that he would make something of himself by prospecting for gold and silver.

Now Angie’s parents have passed away and left her broke with nothing to live on. Angie wants her life to start and yearns to actually live as a married woman. Practically designated the position of a wallflower after being deserted by her husband, Angie had always been on the outside looking in, until Peter De Groot shows an interest in her and wants to start a life with her. Wanting the divorce that she should have obtained long back, without any funds to achieve what she wanted, Angie makes her way to Sam hoping that he would pay all the expenses for the year long period that she would have to wait for the divorce to come through.

The Sam that she encounters is a grown up, more vital and more handsome version of the man that she fell so swiftly in love with. Old resentments that they both thought they had buried long ago come rising to the surface, both blaming the other for a marriage that never in reality began. When Sam realizes that Angie has nowhere else to go and that he is in no financial situation to pay for the divorce that the both of them wants, the only solution is for Angie to take residence at his small place.

At Sam’s place Angie encounters Lucy and Daisy, the adorable daughters of Sam, which shock Angie more than anything else. The immense feeling of betrayal she feels when she hears that Sam had been living with Laura, the mother of his daughters until she had died of pneumonia, Angie doesn’t know whether to start crying or to start screaming. The one thing Sam regrets more than anything else is the fact that he was never able to offer his name and respectability to Laura, a fact that he, Laura and her parents only knew. But the arrival of his wife, which Sam resents with everything he is, definitely stirs up the story which makes Sam’s resentment to the forced arrangement grow.

Upon meeting Daisy, the youngest of the two girls, Angie realizes why Sam has other priorities at the moment. Born with club foot, the surgery required to correct the defect cost the earth and Sam was determined that this time as soon as he got enough money Daisy would be his number 1 priority. And with the courts having sentenced Sam that if during the 1 year period he is unable to get the surgery done on Daisy he would have to give up both his daughters to their grandparents, who loathe Sam for “seducing” their daughter into an immoral life with him.

Angie who doesn’t know squat about caring for children, slowly learns what it is like to lose your heart to two beautiful girls who could try your patience until you no longer have any left. With Lucy fighting Angie and her affections every step of the way, life is a constant battle for Angie. And feelings she had never come across before start to haunt and taunt her with her alluring husband so close by. Intimacies that develop over living in a small space contribute towards the raging inferno that is ignited inside Angie, and suddenly every waking thought and dream she has is full of Sam and the way he could make her lose herself in desire she had no right feeling now.

Sam thought that anything he had felt for Angie 10 years back had long since being buried. But the woman that Angie has grown into is more alluring than he can resist. With her fiery spirit and courage, and her affection towards his two girls Sam slowly starts to fall in love with Angie all over again.

However, trust and belief in the other that has always been the problem between the two nearly breaks them apart once again. This was a heartwarming read on how Angie comes to care for the two girls who adorable and equally headstrong, how Angie tries to save and scrape whatever Sam earns so that Daisy could have the surgery she needs before custody would be awarded to their grandparents. I definitely loved Angie as the heroine and needless to say I wouldn’t mind a Sam Holland of my own! *winks*

Beautifully done, this is a marvelous read any true romantic would love.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | BooksOnBoard

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Foxfire Bride by Maggie Osborne

Format: E-bookfoxfire
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Ivy Books
Hero: Matthew Tanner Jennings
Heroine: Eugenia Foxworth
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: November 23, 2004
Started On: August 25, 2010
Finished On: August 27, 2010

If you want to read about heroines who are feisty, independent and live on the fringes of the society having to make do with what they have and are all the more strong for it, Maggie Osborne is always the author to look for. Fox is a heroine as feisty and independent as they come. Born into the rich affluent society in San Francisco, her mother who has a substantial inheritance re-marries when her father dies while Fox is quite young. Her new husband Hobbs Jennings steals the inheritance that is due Fox when her mother dies, leaving Jennings as Fox’s guardian. Since Fox was quite young, around 6 years old, she has no inkling of what is going on when she is bundled up and lands at the home of an aunt who has several kids of her own to look after. Fox ends up being more of a servant at their home and it is at her aunts place that she meets Peaches, a black man who changes her life.

Peaches and Fox strike up an unusual friendship during a time period where black people were merely tolerated. Peaches helps her get educated to the extent he is able to and teaches her everything that she knows. When Fox grows up, she and Peaches run away from their aunt’s place together and make do with whatever work they can get on their way. When Fox reads about Jennings and how he came into an inheritance when his wife and daughter died, it is then Fox realizes just how immensely Fox had been cheated and betrayed. Swearing vengeance on the man who was the reason for the hardships that Fox had had to endure, Fox promises that she would kill Jennings even if it is the last thing she does.

Fox does manage to make her way to San Fransisco and Jennings. But the world Jennings resides in makes Fox wary and she flees back to Peaches and makes a life for her and him in the West. It is there that Fox builds up a reputation as one of the most sought after scout west of the Rockies where she has led numerous folks through wild unexplored terrain until a gunshot wound ends her guiding career. Resigned to living a more sedate life, it is years later that a handsome stranger comes riding through, looking for the notorious guide Fox and encounters the woman who would change his life forever.

When Matthew Tanner, who works as an engineer in the mines of Hobbs Jennings, receives word that his father has been kidnapped and the kidnappers wanted ransom delivered to Denver in less than 3 months, he has no choice but to seek out the services of the best guide in the area. When he comes across Fox, thinking Fox to be a man, he is surprised to find the willful and defiant woman who seems more than capable of leading the cargo that would hold the ransom gold. Though Fox drives a mean bargain, Tanner knows that she is the best available and hires two men who would guard the money throughout the journey.

Fox feels her stomach tighten and hot all over every time she meets Tanner’s eyes. Suddenly Fox longs to be beautiful, demure and all those things she never had a chance to be just so Tanner would want her. Fox knows that the divide between her and Tanner is far too wide. Whereas education and ingrained culture seethes from every pore of Tanner’s body, Fox knows that as Peaches points out, her manners are uncouth at the best.

Tanner cannot understand for the world why he is drawn to the woman who leads him on the dangerous journey towards Denver. What Tanner does know is that he has never wanted a woman like he wants Fox, and though he knows that he has nothing to give to Fox, except a casual affair until they reach Denver, when Fox states that she wants the affair, Tanner knows he has no choice but to give in.

As usual in Osborne novels, the tension between the hero and heroine is what makes the book so delicious. The constant awareness between Tanner and Fox kept at a simmering high makes you sigh and wish for a tall, hard man like Tanner for your own.

Fox knows that life for her would end upon reaching Denver, because she aims to finish the job which she couldn’t complete before. Fox wants to enjoy whatever life can throw her way before submitting herself to the hangman noose, which she knows would swiftly follow when she kills Jennings. Peaches, who accompany them on the journey, who is so sick that he can barely make it through, tries to sway Fox’s mind from killing Jennings.

The journey is one filled with danger, betrayals and the death of Peaches which was heartbreaking to read about. But the biggest shock of all comes when the reader finds out who Tanner’s father actually is, and when the time comes for Fox to decide whether she is going to let her hatred for a man triumph over the love she feels for another.

I felt a teeny tiny bit cheated that Jennings in the end was portrayed not as the villain that I would have wanted, but I guess forgiveness is always better than seeking revenge, since it is that much harder always to forgive someone than to go on hating them forever.

I guess I have only one or two Maggie Osborne novels left. I am going to miss reading these wonderful novels penned by a brilliant author who makes reading romance that much more enjoyable.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | BooksOnBoard

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: I Do, I Do, I Do by Maggie Osborne

Format: E-bookIdo
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Ivy Books
Hero(s): Benjamin James Dare, Bernard T. Barret, Thomas John Price
Heroine(s): Juliette March, Clara Kaus, Zoe Wilder
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: August 31, 2011
Started On: August 23, 2010
Finished On: August 24, 2010

As I mentioned in a previous review of mine, Maggie Osborne certainly doesn’t write your conventional romances. Rather, she takes the story a step further and takes the reader on a ride that he or she would not forget anytime soon.

This story is certainly different from the rest of the books by Ms. Osborne I have read. Featuring 3 heroes and 3 heroines, at first I was in the mind that this story would not work out with the constant juggle between the characters. But I should have trusted Ms. Osborne to use the charm she so effortlessly wields to captivate us on a journey that surely did not give me even a minute to be bored.

Juliette March, a heiress who is quite wealthy on her own right who lives with her Aunt Kibble in the small county of Linda Vista is rescued from impending spinsterhood when she meets, falls in love and marries the debonair seductive smooth talker Jean Jacques Villette. When Jean claims that his money is tied up and he needs some cash in order to purchase a home for Juliette and himself in Oregon, Juliette who has misgivings about setting foot outside of the county where she grew up in, gives a chunk of her inheritance to Jean, who had rode out nine months ago, not to be heard from again. An impeccable lady through and through, Juliette who is pretty much scared of experiencing anything that is beyond her control and anything new, decides to set off on her own to find what happened to her beloved husband.

Clara Kaus is not your typical dainty heroine. Big shouldered, big breasted and big hipped with curves in all the right places, Clara longs to feel a man cherish her and treat her like a delicacy. So she is more than enthralled when Jean who stops over at her inn and claims to have fallen head over heels in love with her and treats her the way she wants to be treated. The next thing she knows, she is married to him, and has given Jean all her savings to buy them a place in Seattle so that they could settle down and start a new life for both of them. Clara was starting to get worried because she hadn’t heard from Jean since he left a couple of months ago. Since the sale of the inn was now final, Clara was determined to travel to Seattle by herself and track down her husband.

It was by chance that on the last day of Clara’s stay at her inn, she encounters Juliette who stops over at the inn in the first leg of the journey she was taking to hunt down her husband. When Juliette eyes the ring on Clara’s finger, a ring identical to the wedding ring that was on her finger, Clara and Juliette both come to realize that they have been had for real by a smooth talker. Though Clara is quick to anger and swears that she would get her money back from the good for nothing man she married, Juliette doesn’t want to believe that what took place between Jean and her could have just been about money. Jealousy is swift to rise between these two women, who are as different from another as night and day. Both wanting to find Jean equally as much, its Clara’s idea that they travel together the rest of the way.

Zoe Wilder comes from the coal mining town of Newcastle. Having grown up with six brothers, constantly struggling for privacy, the the thing that Zoe remembers most about living in Newcastle is the Owner’s Day Parade that takes place annually. Zoe had been five or six when she had realized that the elegantly dressed men and women in the carriage parade looked at the people lining the lanes of Newcastle with a mixture of superiority and contempt. Zoe had sworn that she would drag herself out of Newcastle and find something better for her when she grew up. Now living in Seattle working for an uncle, Zoe reveled in the freedom that her life had brought about. Meeting Jean Jacques Villette, right after she was awarded quite a large sum of money for rescuing the grandson of one of the affluent families in the area, seemed like a godsend. To meet a man who didn’t have a black layer of grime under his fingernails who claimed to fall head over heels in love with her and who effectively seduced her into saying yes to marriage, Zoe was happier than she had ever been. That is until, on her visit to Newcastle, her mom poses disbelief upon hearing that her newly wedded husband had left her to hunt for gold in Yukon, leaving Zoe to fend off for herself. However Zoe refuses to doubt in her husband, though she longs for any sort of news from him.

When Juliette and Clara deduce that Jean was on his way to Yukon to hunt for gold, Clara decides that the best course of action would be to confirm his departure to Yukon by checking whether he bought year long supplies to Yukon. It is inside one of these supply shops that Clara and Juliette encounter Zoe and find out that Zoe too had married Jean Jacques Villette and wore the same type of ring that Clara and Juliette wore. Three women so different from one another, each jealous of the love that Jean had showered on the other two, tempers fly and words are exchanged between the three. Zoe feels so immensely betrayed by the fact that Jean had made her feel ashamed of her roots and family back in Newcastle, swears that she would shoot the good for nothing man they all had married. Each having their own reason to hunt down Jean, the three of them decide to make their way to Yukon, knowing that it was going to be a long and arduous journey.

On their journey, Juliette meets quietly intense Benjamin James Dare who lost his wife to illness. Ben wants to feel alive again and thus the journey to Yukon as a prospector to find gold. Strongly drawn towards a woman who puts propriety above everything else, Ben is surprised by the intense emotions that Juliette evokes in him. Juliette in turn is scandalized to feel the hot rush of emotion she feels every time Ben comes to find her. Though Juliette fights everything within her to prevent herself from falling in love with the most wonderful man she had ever met whilst married to another, it is inevitable that love would follow the intense connection between two people so well suited for each other. The first time Ben and Juliette come together is intense, hot and quite a different scene of seduction from the ones you usually come across. I found myself seduced right along with these two and enjoyed every minute of their encounters.

Clara encounters larger than life Bernard T. Barret (Bear) and feels an intense tug towards the broad shouldered massive man who is a gentle giant in Clara’s opinion. Bear is captivated by Clara’s lush figure and loses the arm wrestling competition aboard the ship that sails them towards Yukon. Constantly being ridiculed after the encounter by other shipmates, Bear feels at times exasperated and more aroused than he has ever been with a woman in like forever. Growing up with a mother whose profession was whoring, Bear always felt that no proper woman would want his company once they find out his background. Equally strong personalities make for a real strong connection and in the end their encounter together nearly destroys Bear’s cabin up in the mountains. It was everything and more of what I envisioned for these two.

Zoe meets Thomas John Price (Tom), one of her brother Jake’s best friends from Newcastle. Tom has made a life for himself outside of Newcastle, building his own supply company and was comfortably well off. Zoe is surprised to encounter Tom and find that she is strangely drawn to a man from Newcastle, something she had sworn never to do. Tom had always known that Zoe would grow up to be a beauty, but the woman whom he encounters on the shores of Yukon just takes his breath away. Before long, whether Zoe wants it or likes it or not, Tom is courting her and the tender and beautiful way in these two come together is certainly a moment worth savoring in this book.

What all these three ladies have in common in the new relationships that they forge during the journey is the fact that they refuse to tell anyone that  they are married to the same man and had come to Yukon to hunt down Jean. But in the end, when the truth does come out, the new men in their lives feel so betrayed by the fact that they had been duped into bedding married women, and that they hadn’t been able to trust them ends their relationships effectively. And finding at the last minute that Jean had sailed from Yukon on the same ship that they had traveled into Yukon, Juliette, Clare and Zoe know that its the end of a journey for the three of them who have come to care for one another and consider one another as the best of friends.

The ending seemed a bit trivial for me, when these 3 ladies continue their journey to Jean’s hometown and encounter the fact that Jean had died after succumbing to illness. It was funny to realize that the three of them weren’t alone in being duped by a man who was so skilled at what he did. With three beautiful children and a wife at home, Jean had traveled all over, marrying women and collecting money from them. Letters written to the three of them, each stating individually what had drawn Jean to them, I guess was the ending that a novel of this type deserved, though I would have felt better if Jean had been alive and the three of them had got to give a piece of their minds to a man who had cheated them out of so much.

In the end, its all happily ever afters for the three of them. It was fun, deeply sensual ride with this book and I definitely recommend this book as I do for the other books by Ms. Osborne that I have read so far.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | BooksOnBoard

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: The Promise of Jenny Jones by Maggie Osborne

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Warner Books
Hero: Ty Sanders
Heroine: Jenny Jones
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication:  April 1, 1997
Started On: August 22, 2010
Finished On: August 23, 2010

Maggie Osborne certainly doesn’t write about your conventional heroines. Her books always center around those women who are uneducated and shoulder the responsibilities usually carried out by men for survival’s sake. The story moves on in such a manner that you can see the heroine transform herself into something better because all along, even though the heroine may cuss and drink like the best of men, she always has redeeming qualities that shine in the end.

The Promise of Jenny Jones centers around one such heroine. Jenny Jones is a woman who had had to fend for herself from the tender age of around 8 when her mother had kicked her out of her home. Jenny had never shied away from hard tough work, because it was either that or starve to death. Big boned and reaching a height of around 6 ft, Jenny defies the convention of dainty figured women. Her one encounter with a man had soured her of having any sort of relationship with a man, and in Jenny’s mind, no man in his right mind would look at her twice. But the one remarkable quality of Jenny was that when she gave someone her word, she never went back on it. Jenny figures that being truthful was the only thing she had left in this world.

So it is this quality that lands her in a Mexican jail, sentenced to meet her maker by a firing squad. The stench, filth and the lice that seemed to have taken permanent residence in her long red hair almost made her long for the death that would inevitably arrive come morning. Salvation comes in the form of the hauntingly beautiful Senora Margarita Sanders who was terminally ill. She arrives in Jenny’s prison cell and proposes that she take Jenny’s place in front of the firing squad. In return, Jenny had to promise that she would take Margarita’s young daughter Graciela to her father and Margarita’s husband Robert Sanders in Northern California. Margarita feared for her daughter’s life, that her cousins would attempt to kill Graciela and remove the only obstacle that stood in their way of the family fortune, because Margarita’s father, who had disowned her on her marriage to Robert Sanders was filthy rich.

Jenny who had never had the responsibility of looking after a child before is skeptical at best. But a promise given has to be kept and thus Jenny finds out just how tiresome and irksome a six year old can be. Graciela hates Jenny on sight and keeps on praying to God for her death because according to Graciela her mother was killed because of Jenny. And Graciela wants nothing more than to return to what is familiar, unaware of the danger that her cousins now posed.

Ty Sanders had been asked by his brother Robert, upon the death of their father to travel to Mexico and fetch Margarita and his child. Ty unknowingly encounters Jenny and Graciela and Graciela’s two gun toting cousins who are hellbent on removing Graciela from Jenny’s keep. The first encounter itself, though Jenny looks less than flattering with her manly clothes and shortly cropped hair, Ty feels the first stir of awareness and a deep respect for the woman who fiercely guarded her child.

But when Ty finds out later that the woman who had been occupying his thoughts all too frequently since, might have kidnapped Graciela, he swears that he would rescue his niece and return her to her father, regardless of whatever misgivings  he might have about Mexicans.

Thus starts the encounters between these three. Graciela is hardly the docile child you would imagine a woman like Margarita would have reared. But she is spoiled, willful and wants her way or the high way. Graciela reluctantly starts to admire Jenny and Jenny too learns from the girl who slowly starts to creep her way into her heart. And Graciela’s uncle has the most unimaginable effect on Jenny, that she can’t believe that the blue-green eyed, lithe and handsome cowboy was really interested in bedding her, Jenny Jones that no man ever glanced at twice. But when Ty’s smoldering gaze rests on her, Jenny feels beautiful, sexy and all those things that she had never hoped she would feel.

The coming together of Jenny and Ty is explosive amongst the sultry heat of Mexico, amongst a journey that is fraught with danger for the threesome that try to make their way out of Mexico. In the end, Ty gets shot and has to be left behind so that Jenny can keep her promise to the woman who had been brave enough to die for the one person who mattered to her more than anything else.

The epilogue of the story is wonderful, describing the wedding of Graciela and how Ty and Jenny had weathered after marriage. Beautifully done story that kept the pages turning and kept me up into the wee hours of the night, just so I could immerse myself in the beautiful sensuality created by Ms. Osborne.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: A Stranger’s Wife by Maggie Osborne

Format: E-bookstranger
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Hero: Quinn Westin
Heroine: Lily Dale
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication:  April 1, 2001
Started On: August 21, 2010
Finished On: August 22, 2010

When you curl up with a novel by Maggie Osborne, you certainly don’t end up reading the usual flavor of romances out there. A Stranger’s Wife certainly fits that category and more and I devoured up the book with the fascination that Ms. Osborne’s books always invoke.

Lily Dale spent the last 5 years of her life at Yuma Women’s Prison. Lily had been sentenced to prison for 10 years for partnering up with her then boyfriend Cy in robbing one of the gambling halls in Tombstone, Cy had convinced Lily with all his talk that he was doing this for Lily and their new born daughter Rose so that they could all start off with a better life somewhere else. But things had gone awfully wrong and Lily had ended up firing the pistol in her hand, which the prosecutors had been convinced that she had done deliberately. Whilst Cy had been hanged to death, Lily had barely escaped with her life and paid for her participation in crime with five years of her life inside the walls of prison where hard labor, torture, beatings and starvation had been part of daily life. The one thing that got Lily through was the hope of reuniting with her daughter Rose in Missouri.

When Lily is released from prison before her sentence is completed, little does she know that it has something to do with the recent visit to the prison by a Mr. Paul Kazinski who had spent a significant amount of time studying and watching her, which had made Lily pretty uncomfortable. And when Lily hears that Paul, who is a Kingmaker wanted to meet with her Lily knows that once again she is going to be coerced into doing something she doesn’t want to do.

When Lily steps inside the coach that Paul asks her to take a ride in with him, the last thing she expected was to come face to face with larger than life Quinn Westin. And when she hears the foolhardy plan that Paul proposes, that she Lily who had never played by the rules of the society pretend to be the wife of the magnificent man who sat in front of her sent shivers of foreboding up and down her spine.

Quinn Westin was a man who thought ahead of his time. With his idealistic views about how society should be shaped up and moved into the future, Quinn was hellbent on being the first governor of the newly created state of Colorado. Quinn was determined that nothing would stay in his path towards being governor. His long term friend and Kingmaker Paul was equally determined that even the disappearance of Miriam, Quinn’s wife wouldn’t cause any glitches in the campaign which had about seven months left.

Thus finding a woman who had an uncanny resemblance to Miriam was disconcerting to say the least. When Quinn lays his eyes on the rough around the edges convict woman who loves a shot of whiskey and smokes and cusses like any man, Quinn is surprised at the immense tug of attraction he feels for Lily. Likewise Lily cannot believe that the smoldering gaze of Quinn could turn everything she had believed in for so long upside down.

Backed into a corner, Lily reluctantly agrees to the plan and thus starts her journey from a commoner into a refined lady of the society. Paul coaches her in all the ways she needs to change in order to become the woman worthy of being Miriam. But what even Paul can’t tamp down is the sensuality and provocative nature of the woman who is to impersonate a woman who was shy and laid back at best.

From the moment Lily embraces the role of becoming Miriam, Lily craves to find out what actually happened to the woman she is pretending to be. The more she tries to pry information from her enigmatic pretend husband and Paul, the more they shut her out and when she does find out Miriam’s story, Lily at first detests Quinn for being the unfeeling man he shows to be.

But little by little, Lily finds out the truth, the truth of actually what went between Quinn and Miriam and how forces outside who wanted to see Quinn fail in the election had contrived to use Miriam’s vulnerability against Quinn and end his political career once and for all.

The epilogue is certainly different not because it was a letter from Lily addressed to Paul but because of how life shaped out in the end for Lily, Miriam and Quinn. Though many a people may not agree with what takes place in this story, Ms. Osborne makes it work with charm, wit and enough sensuality to knock your socks off.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | BooksOnBoard

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Prairie Moon by Maggie Osborne

Format: E-bookpraire
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Hero: James Cameron
Heroine: Della Ward
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: October 29, 2002
Started On: August 19, 2010
Finished On: August 21, 2010

Maggie Osborne never fails to invoke a massive torrent of emotions in the reader with her books, and this book is in no way an exception to the rule.

Dell Ward, the widow of Clarence Ward who died during the confederates war, now lived in a rundown farm at the edge of a small Texas town. With the small number of animals she keeps and the garden she cultivates to give her a reason to get up each morning, Della is a mere ghost of the woman who married Clarence at the tender age of 16, with dreams of being the idyllic wife of a war veteran.

Lawman James Cameron has been carrying around Della’s photograph with him for the past 10 years. There was not an inch of the woman in the photograph he wasn’t familiar with, and he has once again come to see her so that she would finally know the truth about how her husband had died.

The woman that greets him stirs everything deep within this strong, silent lawman, whom every outlaw in the West was gunning for. Cameron knows that he ought to tell Della outright that he was the reason that Della was a widow and that she had had to fend for herself for the past 10 years. But once Della receives the letter that Clarence had penned for her and never completed before his death, the guilt that Della had been harboring since her husband’s death comes rushing back. The guilt that the last words that her husband had ever read from her were “I hate you”. Della would give anything in her life to take back those words and prevent Clarence from dying thinking that she had hated him.

No matter how much Cameron wants to come out with the truth, he is a man bent on storing up memories for the long lonely life ahead of him of the one woman who had effectively managed to capture his heart. So Cameron comes up with reasons to delay telling Della  the truth and let Della go on assuming that he had been Clarence’s friend. When Cameron finds out that Della was forced to give up her baby girl Claire to the Wards, Cameron knows that returning Claire to Della would be the last thing he does for her before walking away from her life forever.

Della is at first resistant to the idea of going to find Claire, but a part of her can’t help but jump with joy every time she thinks about seeing her baby girl again. Thus starts the long journey these two take, a journey during which the sensual awareness that has always been there between these two bursts to the surface threatening the little control that Cameron has over his feelings when it comes to Della.

The road to happiness for Della and Cameron is not an easy one. Both Cameron and Della have to face their pasts, learn to forgive themselves and one another before they could embrace their happily ever after.

I absolutely loved Cameron as a hero. He definitely is one sigh worthy hero and makes a girl long for one battle scarred brooding war hero of her own. Della complements this strong silent man in every way and though  the immense betrayal she feels when she finds the truth devastates her, the love that she feels for Cameron triumphed over it which made me admire Della as the heroine.

Wonderful story once again by Ms. Osborne. Its a damn shame that she stopped writing romances. Damn shame indeed!

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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