Showing results by author "Eliza Hutchins" in All Categories

Heading West as a mail-order bride after a series of personal tragedies, Peony Eastman finds romance and opulence, followed by illness, heartache, and betrayal until a second chance presents itself in the form of a kind and caring man who offers the possibility of a nurturing, redemptive, and lasting love.

Forced to leave rural Vermont after her small-town employer makes unwanted advances, putting her reputation at stake, orphan Eva Christianson decides to spend the holidays with a stranger who responds to her ad for a husband in The Matrimonial Times. Sheep rancher Gabe Morgen offers her the possibility of escaping her past and starting a new and very different life as a wife and stepmother to an eight-year-old daughter out West. Eva jumps at the chance, then wavers, then finally goes forward to meet her destiny. Although immediately smitten by Gabe when she meets him for the first time in ...

When Cat Flanagan travels West to marry politician Alfred Berg in Spring Canyon, Arizona, the last thing she expects is that the stagecoach will be hijacked, jeopardizing her upcoming wedding. She’s even more distraught to discover that the outlaws intend to hold her for ransom — in the same cramped room as the cocky, enigmatic cowboy who was in the stagecoach with her. When Harrison Winthrop announces his daring plan to escape, the fiery Cat insists on going with him, tagging along despite his protests on a risk-fraught moonlit journey through the desert. The two clash constantly, ...

When Mina Bedford realizes that only a move to the sunny West Coast can save her father and sister from devastating health issues related to cold winters back East, she jumps headlong into a correspondence courtship with a handsome and eligible San Francisco bachelor who dreams of freeing himself from his rich mother’s clutches by embarking on a new life in California’s wholesome and enchanting wine country. Mina never guesses that her selfless desire to assist others will take her on an adventure far beyond her immediate family to help not only her future husband but his interfering ...

Lured into a doomed marriage, Clarissa Chapman finds herself desperate and adrift, until a long-lost acquaintance offers to match her with a rich and eligible man out West. It seems too good to be true. She takes the risk, heads for California, and discovers that her intended is handsome, wealthy, and kind. He’s everything she ever dreamed of…until a devastating personal secret threatens to destroy her happily ever after.

When Rosalee Duncan flees a match made by her parents in Connecticut by agreeing to marry a wealthy farmer out West, little does she expect to find her new intended twice as old as herself and practically illiterate. Once again choosing freedom, she escapes the situation and falls in with a couple of mischievous children who lead her to their home on a romantic but dilapidated steamboat paddle-wheeler. Their dashing but stern and determined father, Captain Jules McLintock, thinks of nothing but saving the ship, neglecting his adorable offspring, and hiring Rosalee as their governess. Both ...

Ivy Hall has always dreamed of a Yuletide wedding. As she prepares to walk down the aisle on Christmas Eve, everything looks perfect, with the church decked out in greenery, soft candles glowing, and favorite carols playing in the background. In the final moments before she joins her true love, Blaze Shepherd, in holy matrimony before a nave packed with eager townspeople, there’s only one problem: The groom's not there! Ivy is so bereaved when the wedding is canceled that she’s packed off to a hot springs healing resort where the doctor suggests that besides a change of scenery, the ...

When soft-spoken Bridget Norton leaves a life of hardship in small-town New Jersey to marry a rancher Out West, she looks forward to something very different. What she doesn’t expect is that before they even marry, her good-natured fiancé, Arne Anderson, will take off for the Old Country to attend a friend’s funeral, leaving her behind to manage his operations. Unequipped for such responsibility, Bridget struggles to hold things together, but when a sheep goes missing, she reluctantly turns to Arne’s enigmatic, estranged brother, Carl, for help. The brooding magnetism of the solitary...

When Dolly Christal, a refined bride-to-be from the East Coast, steps out of her train for a breath of fresh air at a whistle-stop in Colorado, little does she imagine that the doors will close on her, leaving her stranded in the middle of nowhere right before Christmas and unable to reach her fiance in Denver. Fortunately, Yule Harken, a stranger with problems of his own, takes pity on the devastated young woman and invites her to stay with him and his sister at, of all places, a reindeer ranch. Country life is hardly a welcome experience for the cultured Dolly, who frets over what her ...

When Alice Bedford’s father dies of a cold-related illness, she and her mother flee the brutal climate of the East Coast and head out West to join her sister in California’s hot springs-studded wine country. Despite her sadness over the loss of her father, Alice carries hope in her heart because she’s been corresponding with her sister’s neighbor, a wealthy, eligible, and romance-minded landowner. But when she arrives and begins to heal from taking the waters at her sister’s hot springs, Alice finds herself in a quandary. Her ardent long-distance lover, though welcoming and ...

After leaving New York nearly penniless, Tulla Hansen goes West as a mail-order bride to a man she feels certain is the one for her. But her short-lived happiness turns to heartache when the husband of her dreams dies in a tragic accident. Forced to turn their happy home into a lodging house for salty sailors, she locks herself and her young daughter in her room at night, wondering how in the world she can go on...until a handsome stranger arrives on the doorstep, offering her ways to turn her life around and the possibility of a second chance at love.

When Harmony Hollings travels West to marry the young man she‘s been writing to through correspondence courtship, she imagines she’ll be settling into a happy and peaceful life in sunny California. Little does she expect to follow her beloved to the frozen North as a Gold Rush stampeder in Canada’s remote and formidable Yukon. Nothing has prepared her to have to deal with the challenge of catastrophic loss or to have to risk her life crossing icy mountain passes, braving white water rapids, scavenging for food in the wilderness, or competing for scarce resources in lawless boom towns ...

When Lillian Hart travels West in late December to marry the beau she’s been writing to through correspondence courtship, she expects to enjoy the most passionate and romantic Christmas ever, despite her parents’ protests. But instead of rushing into the welcoming arms of her beloved, what she finds is an empty lodge with a kindly proprietress who tells her that her fiance has not arrived yet — and doesn’t even have a reservation! Heartbroken and abandoned, Lillian feels her dreams crumbling around her. All seems lost until Nick, a kindly local cab driver with good samaritan ...

Desperate after failing at one romance and then losing her job, Roxy Melrose devises a plan to go out West and just appear on the doorstep of a man she’s met through correspondence. Little does she expect to meet and fall for a dark, handsome gambler on the train to California. When they part ways in San Francisco, Roxy proceeds with her original plan but meets with disaster, resulting in a downward spiral of jobs that plunge her into wild and unknown territory. As she moves through a changing scene of saloons and gambling houses full of rough characters and dangers, she’s determined to...

When Patience Palmer travels West as a mail-order bride to escape the embarrassment and shame of looming spinsterhood, the last thing she expects is to be held up on a stagecoach during the final leg of her arduous journey. Little does she suspect that her fiance, the most upstanding and admired man in the community, might have anything to do with it. Her accidental discovery of his involvement changes her life’s trajectory, forcing tough decisions and eliciting a cascade of colliding emotions as she grapples with the moral dilemma of staying versus the heartache of parting with the man ...

When Verity Wiley spends her last moments on the East Coast stealing a candy bar to take on the train as she journeys West to meet her future husband, little does she suspect that her harmful habits will jeopardize her future with the handsome cattleman she hopes to marry. Her first breathtaking glimpse of Yosemite Valley, where her fiancé runs a ranch, fills her with wonder, but Verity finds it hard to adjust to the plodding pace of daily life on the edge of the wilderness despite her growing fondness for Joe and his aging mother. Succumbing to the abundance of food available at the ...

When Prudence Hastings arrives in California to meet her future husband, she’s in for a shock. Instead of the well-off landowner she’s been expecting, she finds a lowly gardener. He’s nice but she can’t marry him. And she can’t leave, either, because the railroad’s gone on strike. Things get worse when she storms off to complain to the actual owner of the estate and finds an unhelpful but broodingly handsome master of the house who offers her an unusual possibility for escaping the situation – if she’s up to it. Can she stand to accept his strange offer? Especially if it ...