Joe Denton is in a desperate situation. He is about to lose half of his land if he doesn't come up with a bride in six months, so he goes to his enemy and pays $300. for a Mercer girl, which is a girl from back East that is alone and destitute that will come out to the Washington Territory and marry a man for security only. Joe only wants a marriage in name only, so it doesn't matter what she looks like as long as she can cook for his many lumberjacks that he employs.

Anna Ivy tags along with the Mercer girls as a cook and is told she has a position as a cook for a lumberjack when they reach the Washington Territory, so she can finally rest easy that she is finally saved from having to live off of the streets. She meets a nice lady on the ship that is carrying them over and the lady becomes sick and loses her teeth over the bow of the ship. Anna tells her that her new husband would buy her a new pair and not to worry. That surely she would get a good husband when she arrived. The lady is in her sixties and isn't so sure any of the men would want to marry her though not after seeing all of the young women on the ship that came with them.

When they arrive Joe and Anna are put together, but sparks fly and not the good kind. Joe expects to marry and Anna, having forbid herself to marry believing she killed her family, refuses to marry him. He keeps her as a cook, but pledges to marry the woman in her sixties instead after she gets new teeth.

They slowly fall in love, but Anna won't allow anything to become of it because he is betrothed to another, but what she doesn't know is that the ladies husband has come back from the dead and is in route to pick her up, so Joe is free to marry now.

People in to historical fiction, romance, and lumberjacks.

The whole idea behind the book. The Mercer girls. I have never read a book about them before and it seems to be an original idea.

I think Anna's issues should have been dealt with earlier in the book or more realistic issues presented. Believing you killed your family because you had an argument with one of them is not a good reason to believe you killed three people separately. It just didn't fly with me. She had a letter from her father stating that her arguing would get him killed and she believed it, but she was surely old enough to know that that was not the case. She was so mature in every way except that one way. I guess I can see it since it seems to be that way with most people in real life, but then again... I don't know.

Read something other than romance next.

Honestly, I enjoyed the book. I did. I just wanted to get away from romance for a while. I just felt tired of it all.

Is very talented and I could probably never do better. I enjoy her work immensely. I will read another one of her books this month. I don't know which one, but it will be one of them.

It is a good book and it has a great plot. The mercer girls is an original idea and not written about before that I know of. It will make you thankful for the life you have today. The women in those days suffered greatly and had to give up so much when their husbands died in the war. They had no choices. No options.

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Created Nov 17, 2014 at 12:23pm • Submit your own review...