A Child's Christmas Wish - Erica Vetsch 4.25 stars

The Bounty Hunter's Baby - Erica Vetsch 4.75 stars

I checked this out of the library on a whim. So glad I did. This is a feel good romance with a pinch of danger. Thomas is a bounty hunter, and he's after cattle rustler and murderer Jase Swindell. When he finally thinks he has Swindell captured, he has an unpleasant surprise. The murderer has a pregnant girlfriend who interferes with his capture, and then goes into labor! Poor Thomas does the best he can, but Anna, suffering from consumption, doesn't live to see her son. Instead, Thomas does the right thing and takes the baby to the only safe place he knows; Esther's ranch.

Esther has not had an easy time the last five years. After Thomas lights out of town, leaving her broken hearted, her father selfishly takes his own life after Jase Swindell rustles his cattle, leaving the ranch deep in debt. His suicide note pleaded with Esther to keep the ranch, and she's tried hard to do just that. The taxes are an overwhelming burden, though, and this year she has nothing left to sell to make up the shortfall between her earnings as a laundress. She keeps staving off advances from the neighboring ranch, but she knows that it's inevitable that she will lose her home.

When Thomas rides back into her life, Esther is torn. Here's the man who abruptly abandoned her, and a week later, her father left her, too. When Thomas asked Esther to help care for the baby, she finds that she can't refuse. It's not the little guy's fault that men are not trustworthy. And that is the theme that is repeated over and over again. Esther has to learn to trust again, and with baby Johnny and Rip the dog's help, she finds her ability to forgive and care for others again.

Since her father's death, Esther has stayed a virtual hermit on her ranch. She feels that the townspeople no longer welcome her because of her father's actions. Esther doesn't realize that her own behavior is off-putting, and that she has made herself unapproachable. When Thomas reappears in her life, he sees how much help she needs, and that she refuses to allow others to help her. So he sets about showing her the value of friendship and that relying on others isn't a terrible thing.

I loved Thomas. He just wants to do what's right. After being run out of town, he became a bounty hunter. Now that he's reunited with Esther, he still doesn't think he's good enough for her, but he's going to do his best to fix up the ranch and get her settled again before he heads off after Jase Swindell. He's kind and caring, and wants what's best for Esther and the baby. When danger threatens, he realizes that it's time to make things right, and then to set down roots. With Esther and with the baby.

This is an inspirational romance, and it did get a little preachy at times. The time period made that not as onerous. I have enjoyed several of the Love Inspired Historical romances, and I'm adding Erica Vetsch to my authors to watch list. Recommended if you are in the mood for a sweet romance.

This collection delivers on its promise of "nine pioneering couples risk all for love and land." With all nine stories set in the American frontier of the 1880’s, there are certain commonalities. Snowstorms, soddies, hard work, land disputes, fighting the elements and fighting attraction are each characteristics of more than one story. But common to all are faith in God that is strengthened, renewed, or begun and couples coming together out of love or necessity or both.

 

A full review with a brief description and review of each story is on my Wordpress blog http://wp.me/p5Tcfi-1K

 

This is a strong collection of Christian Romance that I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys Historical Fiction and sweet, clean romance set in a rugged and unforgiving frontier.

 

This review refers to a free ebook received from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Practical photography is said to be born around 1839 when picture taking became able to be done for commercial use.  What a wonderful context for Historical Romance--the life of an early photographer. 

 

Enjoy these Photographers in Historical Romance Novels. My lists are never in any particular order. 

 

1. Handpicked Husband (Texas Grooms Book 1) by Winnie Griggs

 

Can she drive away not one, but three suitors?

Free-spirited photographer Regina Nash is ready to try. But unless she marries one of the gentlemen her grandfather has sent for her inspection, she'll lose custody of her nephew. So she must persuade them—and Adam Barr, her grandfather's envoy—that she'd make a thoroughly unsuitable wife.

Adam isn't convinced. Regina might be unconventional, but she has wit, spirit and warmth. His job was to make sure Regina chose from the men he escorted to Texas—not to marry her himself! Can they overcome the secrets in her past, and the shadows in his, to find a perfect future together?

 

2. Colorado Dawn (A Runaway Brides Novel Book 2) by Kaki Warner

 

After only three letters and one visit during her six-year marriage to a Scottish cavalry officer, Maddie Wallace decides to build a new life for herself by accepting an assignment from a London periodical to photograph the American West. Then Angus Wallace returns home unexpectedly after a military injury to find his wife gone, and to discover he’s in line to an earldom. His mission to find Maddie takes him to Heartbreak Creek, Colorado where his biggest challenge awaits: convincing his headstrong wife to return home as his viscountess.

Now Maddie must decide between the glorious Colorado mountains or the glittering ballrooms of London, and between the man she has loved and the dreams she wants so desperately to fulfill.

 

3. Painted by the Sun by Elizabeth Grayson

 

A Woman On A Desperate Quest
Working as a traveling photographer, Shea Waterston is following the path of the orphan trains west, searching for the son she was forced to give up ten years before. She pays for her search any way she can, including setting up her camera to photograph a hanging. When that lands her in Judge Gallimore's jail, Shea never dreams that soon after, she'll have the chance to save the judge's life.
A Man With A Terrible Secret
Colorado Territorial Judge Cameron Gallimore is a strong, just man who damned himself years before with one fateful decision. Only this mysterious stranger from Denver truly touches the empty hidden places in his heart.  Then, with nothing more than a chance photograph and the haunting familiarity in a young boy's smile, they both find the past catching up with them.  But will its secrets drive them into each other's arms?  Or out of each other's life forever...

 

4. A Flickering Light: Portraits of the Heart, Book 1 by Jane Kirkpatrick

 

Returning to her Midwest roots, award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick draws a page from her grandmother's photo album to capture the interplay between shadow and light, temptation and faith that marks a woman's pursuit of her dreams.

She took exquisite photographs,
but her heart was the true image exposed.

Fifteen-year-old Jessie Ann Gaebele loves nothing more than capturing a gorgeous Minnesota landscape when the sunlight casts its most mesmerizing shadows. So when F.J. Bauer hires her in 1907 to assist in his studio and darkroom, her dreams for a career in photography appear to find root in reality.

With the infamous hazards of the explosive powder used for lighting and the toxic darkroom chemicals, photography is considered a man' s profession. Yet Jessie shows remarkable talent in both the artistry and business of running a studio. She proves less skillful, however, at managing her growing attraction to the very married Mr. Bauer.

This luminous coming-of-age tale deftly exposes the intricate shadows that play across every dream worth pursuing–and the irresistible light that beckons the dreamer on.

 

5. A Vision of Lucy (A Rocky Creek Romance Book 3)  by Margaret Brownley

 

 

 

6. A Light on the Veranda by Ciji Ware

 

In this wonderful sequel to Midnight on Julia Street (1999), Daphne Duvallon leaves her native New Orleans for New York City after abandoning her philandering fiance at the altar in front of 500 guests. Now her brother, King, wants her to come back south for his wedding in Natchez. A talented Julliard-trained harpist, Daphne will do anything for her brother, even if it means losing her job with an up-and-coming orchestra, and the trip truly becomes a life-altering experience when she meets Sim Hopkins, a nature photographer who has the potential to be the right man in her life if she can learn to trust again. Both are cautious, and for good reason, as the distant past impacts their future, cued by the music of a mysterious harp. This ghostly instrument opens a gateway to a sequence of tragic events beginning in the late 1790s and ending, finally, with the death of a previous Daphne Duvallon. A thoroughly engaging romance in its own right. Patty Engelmann Copyright © American Library Association. 

 

7. Second Sight (Arcane Society Book 1) by Amanda Quick

 

Photographer Venetia Milton is a spinster by Victorian standards. Economically strapped, she's also the sole support of her aunt and younger siblings. Things start to look up when she is chosen to photograph a collection of artifacts belonging to the Arcane Society, a 200-year-old clandestine organization founded by an alchemist. The collection is housed in an isolated gothic mansion, and Venetia finds herself there in the company of handsome and mysterious Gabriel Jones. Deciding that it's now or never for love, Venetia seduces him, only to lose the man of her dreams in a fire set by a nefarious enemy. Venetia resourcefully moves on, opening a portrait shop and assuming the persona of Gabriel's grieving widow. The talented Mrs. Jones becomes the toast of London, a surprising turnaround, but not nearly as astonishing as Gabriel's reappearance, and the danger she finds herself in. Quick's latest is a clever and entertaining tale about secrets, from a secret society to secret powers to a secret theft. Quick also slips in serious observations about the status of women, debunking the all-too-common assumption that feminism isn't alive and well in the romance genre. With her witty dialogue, multidimensional characters complete with eccentricities and psychic abilities, clever plotting, and generous humor, the perennially popular Quick has penned another surefire winner. Shelley Mosley Copyright © American Library Association.

 

 

8. Fool's Gold by Zana Bell

 

Love – is it worth its weight in gold?

It’s 1866 and the gold rush is on. Left to fend for herself in the wilds of New Zealand’s west coast, Lady Guinevere Stanhope is determined to do whatever it takes to rescue her ancestral home and restore her father’s good name.

Forced out of his native Ireland, Quinn O’Donnell dreams of striking gold. His fiercely held prejudices make him loath to help any English person, let alone a lady as haughty and obstinate as Guinevere. But when a flash flood hits, Quinn is compelled to rescue her, and their paths become entwined in this uncharted new world.

Though a most inconvenient attraction forms between them, both remain determined to pursue their dreams, whatever the cost.

Will they realise in time that all that glitters is not gold?

 

9. A Bride's Portrait of Dodge City, Kansas (Brides & Weddings) by Erica Vetsch

 

Hoping to leave the shadows of her shady yesteryears behind, Adeline Reid is focusing on her photography career. But when her ex-boyfriend’s compatriot in crime shows up in Dodge City her entire past is threatened by exposure. Can Addie keep her secrets while helping to catch a killer? Deputy Miles Carr’s investigation into a shopkeeper’s murder leads him to Addie’s door. Will his attraction to this female photographer keep him from catching the true culprit? Or will Addie lead him off course in more ways than one?

 

10. Miss Fontenot: Heroines of the Golden West, Book 3  by Stephen Bly

 

Stephen Bly's Heroines of the Golden West, which includes Sweet Carolina and The Marquesa, is a dramatic series set in the Old West. With Miss Fontenot, listeners will enjoy another visit to the growing town of Cantrell, Montana, and its colorful residents. Oliole Fontenot has moved to Cantrell from New York City to set up her own photography studio. When she is commissioned to do a series on women in the West, she realizes that this is the chance she needs to establish her reputation as an artist. But a handsome rancher begins to capture her heart, and she must reevaluate what she wants. Is God being too bountiful with his blessings? Praying for guidance, Oliole finds herself asking questions about vanity, humility, and freedom. Through Linda Stephens' narration, the young woman's meditations become a dramatic testimony to divine direction and love.

 

 

To vote for the best of the Historical Romance Photographers, go to my Goodreads list: Daguerreotype: Photographers in Historical Romance Novels. 

 

I love to know your favorites!

 

 

I loved this book. It got some romance in it but it based on the actions and the wild west kinda sett The McConnell brothers all face trouble. It starts with Alec McConnell and Cattle steeling. Clara get involved and things start to happen. Cattle start to disappear. But can Alec save the ranch and Clara? to find out you need to read it for yourself. The second story is about Trace McConnell. He goes on a kidnapping case once Lilly niece gets kidnapped by two men. This stories connected with the first for their a Boss and they are looking for him and his gang. This story starts in Money Creek and then goes to Jardin and once other place. Lilly is deterimed to find her niece after she loose her sister. Wondering what happens to Trace and Lilly? Do they save the children that were kidnapped. Find out by reading this book. The third story is about Cal McConnell. This story is really base in the town of Money Creek. This story is some fun and scary for they find the Boss and where he been staying. They also stage a McConnell. Cal is the stage Coach driver. Trace is away and Alec is at the ranch. Maggie Davis comes and things get a little strange. Will Maggie help Cal out? Do they find who the Big Boss is and his Helper is? You need to read this book for yourself to decide. I dislike giving surprises to anyone about the end of the story. The only thing I will say is that the three stories connect to each other.