Karen's Reviews > His Accidental Bride

HIS ACCIDENTAL BRIDE
BY CAROLYN TWEDE FRANK

Dorothy worked in a saloon helping albeit as an unwilling participant to aid her older brother Vincent cheat while she delivers drinks to the tables she aids Vincent by helping him win card games. Her mother died giving birth and so she is stuck with living with her older brother. During one of these card games as Dorothy is delivering drinks she goes up to the man tending bar named Walter and asks to use the privy. She headed for the back door, grabbing her coat and handbag from the hooks in the storeroom. She runs to the train station and has very little money, less than a dollar. Dorothy bolted into the train not bothering to buy a ticket among the crowd boarding it. While riding on a train from Missouri she meets a kind woman named Wilhelmina Cooper who tells the conductor that Dorothy is sharing her sleeping compartment with her sister to fool the sheriff who just gave Dorothy's description. Wilhelmina can see that Dorothy is bruised below her eye and on her arm and asks Dorothy to describe what happened to her. She offers her one of the bunks to sleep on and gives her a pink nightgown to sleep in. The next morning Wilhelmina has ordered breakfast and tea for the two of them and says she has a business proposition for her.

Wilhelmina tells Dorothy that she had placed an advertisement in a magazine to be a mail order bride and that she had been corresponding with a lawyer in Colorado with a man named Ronald who she was travelling from Chicago to meet. She said on the way she got cold feet and thinks delivering the news by telegraph is too impersonal and if Dorothy delivers the news to him in person she can keep three fine outfits. Dorothy arrives as the mail order bride and the two of them are happy with each other. Dorothy is not yet 21 years old and she is striking in appearance and Ronald Smith is a gentleman that Dorothy is quite happy with because she is not used to being treated so much like a fine lady. They court and she has mixed feelings about all of the deception but has little money so she approaches the woman who owns the saloon in Craig, Colorado and asks if she needs help in the restaurant and Dorothy becomes a waitress while she already feels bad that Ronald Smith is paying all of her expenses in the room she is staying which is rather nice.

To say anymore would spoil the story which gets bogged down with all of the details during their two month courtship. I thought that this was a lovely story and there are still quite a few surprises left. I just feel like this moved along at a slow pace and would have been better if there was not so long a novel to get to the climax of this narrative. I did find it entertaining and enjoyed this novel very much. A lot more happens but you will have to read it to find out. I do recommend this wholesome story that is pleasant reading. This was a pleasure to read and the genre is suitable for fans of historical fiction with romance.

Publication Date: January 4, 2021

Thank you to Net Galley, Carolyn Twede Frank and Covenant Communications for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

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