en years ago Angie Bartoli eloped with Sam Holland. But before their impetuous marriage even began, they were torn apart by chance. For Angie, the gold band on her finger is a constant reminder of the man she could never forget. Aiming to find her husband and resolve their relationship once and for all, Angie sets out on the adventure of a lifetime.

In a small Colorado town, Angie discovers that her young groom has grown into a man--still handsome, irresistible, and infuriating as ever . . . and now the father of two young children. Forced to become a temporary family, Sam and Angie are surprised to find a deeper love awakening between them--one that could require more than they are willing to give if they are to forge a lasting new life on the American frontier.

Sometimes, you pick up a book in your favorite genre, by a writer you love and trust, and it disappoints you. Other times, which happens rarely, you pick up a book in a genre you never liked, by an author you don’t know, and you can’t put it down. You make a joyful discovery. This is what happened with this book.

I never read Maggie Osborne before. I don’t like western romances in general. I don’t even remember why this book ended up in my Kindle, but I decided to give it a try, and I couldn’t stop reading. The writing was superb, the heroes sympathetic, and the story engrossing.

It starts with the heroine, Jenny Jones, in a Mexican prison, waiting for an execution. She killed a Mexican soldier when he tried to rape her, but nobody is interested in her excuses. Then a rich Mexican woman, Marguerita, walks into Jenny’s cell and offers her a trade. The woman would take Jenny’s place in front of the firing squad, if Jenny promises to take the woman’s daughter, six-year-old Graciela, to her father’s ranch in California. Marguerita is already dying from TB, coughing blood, but Jenny hesitates to accept the bargain.

Big and row-boned, Jenny grew up in poverty. Without education or family, she has learned to take whatever jobs were available to survive. A loner and a drifter, she knows how to drive a team of mules or skin a buffalo but she knows nothing about caring for a child. She doesn’t like children. Escorting a spoiled rich girl hundreds of miles to her father seems an odd thing to ask, when she had never met Marguerita before.

But Marguerita is adamant. She is convinced that her multiple cousins mean harm to her daughter. Too much money is at stake, so she asks a virtual stranger to save her daughter’s life at the expense of her own. She is already dying anyway.

Eventually, Jenny gives her word to take Graciela to California, but their trip is fraught with dangers and complications. Graciela hates Jenny for “killing” her mother. The girl weeps and throws tantrum after a tantrum to make her point. The cousins, intent on murder, hunt them across the Mexican desert.

And then, there is Ty, an American cowboy and Graciela’s uncle, sent by his brother to escort the girl home. When Ty comes for Graciela, he learns that a gringo murderess kidnapped his niece. He has no choice but to pursue them too, staying one step ahead of the cousins. When he finally catches up with Jenny and Graciela, the situation deteriorates rapidly, the pace speeds up, and breathtaking actions ensue.

Emotions fly high throughout the tale, as Jenny and Ty learn to cooperate, as they fall in love, as they fight the greedy cousins and protect Graciela in their desperate flight across half of Mexico.

I loved Jenny, which was a surprise for me. She is rude and coarse, she doesn’t have a feminine bone in her body, and she cusses and fights like a man. I don’t usually fall for such characters, but Jenny bewitched me. She is like a diamond wrapped in dirty canvas - a priceless gift in crude packaging. Unwrapping that packaging, discovering the beauty inside, was amazingly satisfying.  

Jenny’s best feature is her absolute honesty. She never lies. She values her word above all else. Once she gives her word, she would never go back on it, never betray or renege on her promise.

Here’s how it is, kid. After you give a promise, see, the person you gave it to is out of the deal. It’s just you and the promise. If you keep the promise, then you’re somebody. You did right. But if you fail then you might as well stick a knife in your gut because you aren’t worth spit. You’re a person with no fricking honor.

Jenny also has a quirk: she likes new words. Her favorite book is a dictionary. She reads it in her spare time and she savors new words, the longer and more obscure the better. What a delightful kink for a seemingly uncouth young woman.

A wonderful story. I’ll definitely read more of Maggie Osborne.

As scruffy and rootless as the other prospectors searching for gold in the Rockies, Low Down wanted nothing in return for nursing a raggedy bunch through the pox. But when pressed to reveal her heart's wish, she admits, "I want a baby." Not a husband, not a forced marriage to the proud man who drew the scratched marble and became honor bound to marry her. To be sure, Max McCord was easy on the eyes, but he loved another woman and dreamed of a different life. Yet they agreed to a temporary marriage that could end only in disaster. But can this strange twist of fate lead to the silver lining that both have been searching for?

I adore Marriage of Convenience tropes. Love all that forced proxmity with a stranger you have to build a life with....yeah... so gooood.

 

One of my very favorite sub tropes is Save From The Noose Marriage of Convenience. This is a plot where the hero or heroine is about to be hung or imprisoned for a very long time and gets out of it by marrrying. Yep. Love it. 

 

Can't seem to find out if this was actually ever a law but in Romanceland it is and my guess is there is some truth to the practice. 

 

Here are some wonderful Romances with this Theme. 

 

1. Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

 

A pact is sealed in secret behind the foreboding walls of Newgate Prison. In return for a night of unparalleled pleasure, a dashing condemned criminal consents to wed a beautiful heiress, thereby rescuing her with his name from an impending and abhorred arranged union. But in the fading echoes of hollow wedding vows, a solemn promise is broken, as a sensuous free spirit takes flight to a lush Caribbean paradise, abandoning the stranger she married to face the gallows unfulfilled.

 

But Ruark Beauchamp's destiny is now eternally intertwined with that of the tempestuous, intoxicating Shanna. He will be free . . . and he will find her. For no iron ever forged can imprison his resolute passion. And no hangman's noose will deny Ruark the ecstasy that is rightfully his. 

 

2. The Texan's Wager by Jodi Thomas

 

Thrown off a wagon train with two other women and trying to avoid jail for a murder they committed, Bailee Moore agrees to enter a “Wife Lottery”—a ploy concocted by the Cedar Point sheriff to secure wives for the men in the small Texas town. For the sensible Bailee, however, marrying Carter McKoy is like exchanging one life sentence for another—especially since her new husband hasn’t even seen fit to utter a single word in her presence. But still, she can’t help thinking that something about this strong, silent farmer could be the key to leaving her troubled past behind…and making a worthy wager with her heart.

 

3. The Marriage Debt by Louise Allen

 

Marrying a highwayman awaiting execution is Katherine Cunningham's only hope - for that way her debts will die with him. But it turns out that her husband, Nicholas Lydgate, is innocent - and the son of a duke! Katherine is determined to save his life, as she is attracted to Nicholas, but she won't hold him to a union until he shows he cares for her...

 

4. Seduction of the Phoenix by Michelle M. Pillow

 

A prince raised in honor and tradition, a woman raised with nothing at all. She wants to steal their most sacred treasure. He’ll do anything to protect it, even if it means marrying a thief. 

Prince Zhang Jin is a man raised in honor and tradition, so it is a great surprise when he is compelled to claim a stranger as his bride who has neither. Francesca La Rosa is hardly a match fit for a prince. Though beautiful, she is a thief with one thing on her mind--stealing the sacred Jade Phoenix of his people. But the mystery doesn't end there. With the aid of the spirits of his ancestors he must discover who this woman is, why she would destroy the Zhang Empire and most of all, if she could ever return the love that is growing in his heart.

 

5. The Wives of Bowie Stone by Maggie Osborne

 

Knowing that she can save the life of a condemned man by offering to marry him, Rosie Mulvehey opts for a marriage of convenience to ex-cavalry man Bowie Stone, who promises to save her rundown farm as his part of the agreement.

 

6. The Lassoed by Marriage Romance Collection by Angela Bell, Angela Breidenbach, Lisa Carter, Mary Connealy, Rebecca Jepson , Amy Lillard, Gina Welborn, Kathleen Y'Barbo, and Rose Ross Zediker  

 

Come along on a romantic journey jam-packed with all the angst of marriages founded upon practical choices as well as coercion. Meet nine couples who barely know each other before they find themselves suddenly married—to please family, to stem the tide of gossip, to save the land—and joined for life. But can love grow when duty comes before romance? 

 

7. Beauty's Beast by Amanda Ashley

 

Beauty

Fair of face and figure, Kristine is young, innocent, pure. Yet she has been condemned to the gallows for killing a man. The only one who can save her is a lord so infamous that some say he is the son of the Devil himself. . .

And the Beast

Erik Trevayne is called the Demon Lord of Hawksbridge Castle, but few know of the curse he lives under. Or the terrifying changes slowly gnawing away at his humanity. When he weds her, all he wants of Kristine is a son. But when he beds her, a wild hope is born--that love that can tame even the most monstrous of beasts. . .

 

8. Shadow's Stand by Sarah McCarty

 

Shadow Ochoa is lying low in the western Kansas Territory, waiting for his fellow Texas Rangers—the Hell's Eight brotherhood—to clear his name. That is, until he's unjustly strung up for horse thieving…and pretty Fei Yen intervenes. Invoking a seldom-used law, the exotic lady prospector claims Shadow as her husband and rides off with the bridegroom shackled to her buckboard.

Savvy, fearless Fei is single-mindedly devoted to her hidden claim and all it promises: wealth, security and freedom. A husband is just a necessary inconvenience and a name on paper to hold the claim she cannot.

Shadow isn't a man to take orders from anyone, especially from lovely Fei—except that the daily friction between them ignites into nightly blazes of all-consuming passion. Soon Shadow is dreaming a little himself: of the life they could have if only Fei could see past the lure of independence. If only bounty hunters weren't closing in on him. If only he's left standing when the impending showdown has ended….

 

9. Wild West Brides by Cathy Maxwell, Ruth Langan, and Carolyn Davidson 

 

Flanna and the Lawman by Cathy Maxwell

Desperate for someone to help her protect her land, a female con artist saves an ex-lawman from the hangman's noose by claiming him as her no-good husband, and finds herself wanting to turn their charade into a real marriage. 

 

This Side of Heaven by Ruth Langan

When a runaway and her young nephew find a safe haven with a solitary Montana rancher, three lonely people become a family, until their peace is threatened by the boy's father, bent on vengeance. 

 

Second Chance Bride by Carolyn Davidson

His mail-order bride's deceit had stung him to the quick, but the pregnant widow's care of his four-year-old daughter had Jebediah rethinking his vow to send her packing as soon as her baby was born.

 

10. Border Wedding by Amanda Scott

 

Captured in 1388 in the act of stealing back his own cattle, young Sir William Scott faces hanging, then gets one other choice--to marry immediately his captor's eldest daughter, the lady Margaret Murray, known by all as Muckle-Mouth Meggie. With the line between England and Scotland shifting daily, the Earl of Douglas wants to win back every inch of Scotland that the English have claimed; whereas the equally powerful English Percies (under Hotspur) want to win back the land between Northumberland and Edinburgh; and the Murray family is caught in the middle, shifting its alliances to try to survive. Uncertain whether she is English or Scottish and abruptly married to Sir William who is staunchly loyal to the cause of Scottish independence but who also has promised he'll never take up arms against her family, Meg Murray learns two things: first, Will's word is his bond; second, her favorite brother is spying on Douglas for Hotspur. As Sir Will faces the dilemma of honoring his word to the unscrupulous Murray without betraying Douglas, Meg must choose between betraying the husband with whom she is rapidly falling in love, or betraying her own family and best-loved brother.

 

Got more? Gimme! 

 

Vote for the best of the best on my Goodreads list: Saved from the Noose Romance . 

not for me. I think what bothered me most is that I couldn't pin down the time or place this novel was supposed to take place in. if Denver hadn't been mentioned numerous times I never would have known. there was nothing particularly 'western' about the novel at all. and I couldn't buy the character's reactions as believable. it was inoffensive, but meh. TBH I made it about halfway and decided I didn't want to go through the plot with the characters so I skipped to the last chapter. now sometimes when I do that I discover that I really do need to read the rest of the book, not so much this time. predictable plot is predictable. and not particularly enjoyable.