Naomi Dawn Musch

     When it comes to prairie romance, the mail-order bride concept is always a draw. Hmm, how could a gal get herself into such a pickle? What could draw someone to want to head into the wild west and marry a complete stranger? These questions intrigued me, as they might any romance reader, Vickie McDonough must have asked herself the same thing when she penned her new book from Barbour Publishing, The Anonymous Bride. Her answers made the book a galloping read.

     At the heart of the story are ex-cavalryman Luke Davis and his one-time sweetheart Rachel Hamilton and her little girl. Rachel jilted Luke eleven years ago and married his best friend instead. Now Luke has returned to Lookout, Texas as the new town marshal, and he realizes that the bitterness he feels for her still runs deep, even though she’s a widow.

     His cousins, on the other hand, aren’t so sure he’s over Rachel, and they devise a scheme that’ll either get them back together for good, or will have Luke married to someone else. The next thing you know, there are not one, but three mail-order brides coming to town, and a fourth yet to show. A contest for Luke’s hand ensues, but it’s an anonymous bride’s competition that really heats things up.

     The Anonymous Bride was a romp to read. I especially like the way Ms. Mcdonough writes the extra characters. The cousins were my favorite. Their dialogue is crisp, witty, and real. The girls coming as brides each had remarkable stories of their own. I found their situations believable – enough so that I would’ve considered being a mail-order bride myself if I were in their shoes. And, there’s an outside threat that keeps the reader wondering, too.

     Spiritually, the author was committed both to the tale and to showing the characters’ struggles with faith and forgiveness. Mostly this works, but there was a place or two where I felt that the spiritual battle was more tacked in than an indigenous to the story.

     The only other criticism I had was that I felt like Luke Davis agreed to his cousins’ schemes too easily. Even though the mayor was pressuring him to choose a wife for his job’s sake, I had a hard time thinking that a tough, good-looking man with Luke’s life experiences would agree to do it. But then, maybe there’s plenty that would.

Still, fiction lovers have to have a willingness to believe, and despite these minor details, the story was fun and fast reading. Carly Payton’s character as one of the “brides” was an especially good twist. You’ll have to read it though, to see why!

     3 ½ Stars for The Anonymous Bride, first in the Texas Boardinghouse Series.