Bride of the High Country

June 15, 2012

Plucked from the degrading horror of brothel life in the New York slums, young Cathleen Donovan loses her Irish roots and becomes Margaret Hamilton, a wealthy widow's ward. With her engagement to a prominent Irish businessman, her future seems assured--until an appalling truth about her intended sends her fleeing, with desperate men on her trail. Stranded by a washed-out trestle in Heartbreak Creek, a dilapidated mining town in the Colorado Rockies, Margaret--now Lucinda Hathaway--impulsively decides to stay and get on with revitalizing the town and rebuilding her life. But the Pinkertons do good work, and once again she is the target of a depraved villain who wants her dead and Tait Rylander, who will stop at nothing to keep her alive. VERDICT A smart, resourceful heroine who survives at all costs, a strong, honorable hero who refuses to let her go, and a surfeit of diverse, unforgettable characters combine in a gripping, multilayered story that pulls few punches as it draws readers into the romance and often unvarnished reality of life in 19th-century America. Warner (Colorado Dawn) lives in Washington State.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.