The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride

December 2, 2013
In Brown’s third Cowboys and Brides romance (after The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby), Emily Cooper’s dying grandfather instructs her to deliver a box of 60-year-old letters to his old flame, Clarice Adams, and take a month to consider whether to take on the hard life of ranching in West Texas. Clarice wants to talk about Emily’s grandpa, so Emily accepts an offer to stay at Clarice’s ranch north of Dallas and teach her computer bookkeeping. Clarice’s grandson, Greg Adams, really runs the ranch, and he and Emily immediately hit it off. They learn more about each other through working cattle, mucking horse stalls, playing dominoes with Clarice and her elderly friends, helping each other through the grief of losing their grandpas, and writing letters they slip under each other’s bedroom doors. The plot is sparse and the padding repetitious, but Brown’s love for all things cowboy shines through. Agent: Erin Niumata, Folio Literary Management.

February 1, 2014
Two modern ranchers are the stars of Brown's contemporary twist on the perennial western romance theme of the mail-order bride. Orphaned, Emily Cooper was raised on her grandfather's west Texas ranch, which diminished in size as cancer treatments consumed his finances. Just before he died, the post office returned a letter he mailed 60 years ago. After his death, Emily, on her way to a beach vacation as ordered by her grandfather, stops in Texas hill country to deliver the letter, a marriage proposal, in person to Clarice on her Lightning Ridge Ranch. There, Emily is captivated by photographs of a gorgeous cowboy and the silly, sweet, sticky notes he has posted for his grandmother. When Emily decides to spend her vacation at Lightning Ridge, she is swept into a plot devised by Clarice and her cronies to find a bride for Greg through online dating sites. Heartwarming, funny, and sexy, Brown's new take on an old trope is thoroughly satisfying.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)