Eveline Hart

Madelyn and Lilian Thomas are the daughters of newspaper publisher parents, traveling west to Oregon on the Oregon trail, in the 1845. In the course of the journey, the jewels belonging to another woman in wagon train have been stolen, and a man has been murdered. These events are believed to be related, but so far, both crimes are unsolved.

Madelyn and Lilian are determined to prove themselves as investigative reporters, by investigating this story for themselves. They also want to support the paper as a whole, though, and when they meet Arnold Hendricks, they recognize him as a real find.

Arnold, part of a Missouri farm family also traveling with the wagon train, is a gifted artist, someone the newspaper can use, if they can convince him to stop hiding from attention and show his work to their father.

What follows is a growth of both friendship and courtship among the Thomas sisters, Arnold, families of Protestant Irish missionaries also attached to the traveling group, and other artists and writers also hoping to land positions with the newspaper when they all arrive in Oregon.

Meanwhile, Madelyn and Lilian are quite serious about their investigation of the theft and murder. This is the second book in a series whose planned length I don't know, and that investigation seems to be the arc that binds the series together. What happens in this book is character development, getting to know more of the larger traveling group, and Arnold's courtship of one of the sisters.

It's a gentle story, more satisfying than exciting.

A very good summer read. Recommended.

I received an electronic galley from the publisher via Booksprout, and am reviewing it voluntarily.… (meer)

Joel Macintosh and his extended family are part of a wagon train on the Oregon Trail in 1845. Events in the two previous books have included a jewel theft, a murder, a marriage, and an engagement amongst the various families of the convoy. The murder and jewel theft are connected, and are unsolved.

The marriage was his brother Liam's to Lenora, from the Missouri farmer part of the convoy. Their other brother, Brandon, was already married, and his wife, Jennifer, is pregnant. She's also sick, with yellow fever, and the baby is due, or perhaps a bit overdue.

This is worrying, but as one of the scouts for the convoy, Joel has to ride out ahead with the other scouts and the deputy marshal, Scott Mercer. When they find the wagon of Trader Jones, who had visited them just a week or so earlier, at the bottom of a bluff, at first they think it's an accident.

It wasn't. The trader was ambushed and killed, and most of his goods stolen.

Inside the ruins of the wagon, they find a Lakota woman and her infant son. She's injured, but alive, and speaks some English--but most of the "pale walkers" scare her, and she'll only speak to Joel, who speaks more softly and seems less threatening.

What follows is an interesting mix of romance, intrigue, and further investigation of the jewel theft and, now, two murders. Interactions between white settlers and Native Americans were sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, and always fraught. Mixing between them was frowned on, but nevertheless, mixed race people existed. It's treated respectfully, here, and everyone's customs (not just white vs. native, but also the Catholic Irish, the Protestant Missouri Germans, and what I'll lump together as the mostly WASP bulk of the convoy) are treated as simply differing customs, regardless of whether some individuals have stronger views on particular ways of Doing Things Wrong.

It's an enjoyable story. Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via Booksprout, and am reviewing it voluntarily.… (meer)

Encouraged by his brother Zachary's experience in marrying mail-order bride Bonnie Yankovich, Will Henry Kennesaw asks if her sister, Elzbieta, would be willing to come west and marry him. She agrees, and when the great day arrives, he, his brother Zachary, and sister-in-law Bonnie, are in town to meet the stagecoach bringing in...
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Bonnie and Elzbieta's younger sister, Kasia.

Who is pregnant.

Kasia was working as a maid in a wealthy family's home, and was seduced by the son of the house. He promised he'd marry her, but of course his parents fired her and sent their son off the Europe.

The sisters' mother is outraged and humiliated, and furious with her daughter. She decides that Kasia will take Elzbieta's place in Texas, to save the family the public disgrace of a bastard child. Never mind what either Kasia or Elzbieta want, and the prospective bridegroom's wishes weren't a consideration at all.

Will Henry, Kasia, Bonnie, and Zachary, not to mention the brothers' grandmother, Eldora Kennesaw, all have adjustments and decisions to make. Willher Henry says he won't accept a woman carrying another man's child, and Kasia can't imagine loving anyone but beloved Hayes, who meekly followed his parents' orders to go to Europe, and her mother has convinced her that if she doesn't marry before the baby is born, both she and her baby will burn in hell.

Fortunately, everyone, including Will Henry, agree that as Bonnie's sister she's part of the Kennesaw family now, but what will happen?

Again, I like these people, and it's fun, light romance.

I bought this book.… (meer)

Elzbieta Yankovich, the oldest unmarried Yankovich sister, was cheated of her chance at a marriage away from the Pennsylvania mines, when her sister Kasia got pregnant and their mother sent her to Texas, instead, to spare the family scandal and shame. Very much wanting a family of her own, Elzbieta is discouraged and unhappy, and considering becoming a nun, instead.

Then her sister Bonnie writes to her from Mesquite. Lincoln Duffy, something of a thorn in her side when she first arrived, has turned himself around. He's now the foreman on the Turner ranch, and has fixed up the foreman's cottage to be a comfortable home, even making a good garden for it. He's ready for a wife, and he's impressed by the two Yankovich sisters who have married into the Kennesaw household. He remembers that they have another unmarried sister, the one who was supposed to marry Will Henry, before Kasia was sent in her place.

Elzbieta decides that this is her chance.

Yet for all she planned for the hardships of traveling west, she didn't plan for her brother, a union organizer, to need to flee at the same time, and for the union to give the two of them tickets, false names, and a new route, so that Nacek can get to Chicago. Or for there to be a train robbery, which winds up temporarily stranding her in Oklahoma.

Or for meeting there, in the boarding house where she waits to talk to the sheriff and to the railroad authorities, a man with a broken leg, waiting for it to heal.

I'll say right out that the reader knows more about what's going on than Elzbieta or the man with the broken leg. They are both sincere, honest people, who want to do the right thing and keep their commitments. This is another enjoyable, light romance, fun to read, with likable characters.

I bought this book.… (meer)