Montana Mail Order Brides Series

Nineteen-year-old Lou Ann Hawkins is on her way to Ogden, Utah, to meet her groom. But just as she prepares to get off the train to begin her new life, a man stops her. “Don’t go out there,” he warns her. “There’s a gun battle going on.” Trapped in the doorway of the train car, Lou Ann witnesses the horror of seeing a man gunned down in the middle of the street. But her horror grows when the townspeople and the passengers getting off the train flock around the killer, raise him onto their shoulders, and parade him through the town as a hero. When Lou Ann tries to report the murder to the sheriff, she gets another shock. The sheriff doesn’t care about the dead man and also proclaims the young killer a hero. He tells her the dead man was a notorious outlaw who terrorized the town for forty years. The people of the area have been praying for someone to kill him and deliver them from his predations. Lou Ann begins to understand, but her world turns upside down once again when she arrives at the altar to marry her groom, only to discover that the man she has arranged to marry is the young gun fighter from the day before. At every turn, Lou Ann’s hopes and dreams for a new life out West fall apart, until she is forced to make the ultimate choice to claim her destiny.

Young Matthew Burke overhears the schoolyard bully bragging that his father, Noah, plans to steal the school master’s new mail order bride. No one dares cross the dreaded Bartlett family by interfering in their wicked business. But young Matthew loves the Master for his kindness and attention, and he risks everything to warn him of the Bartlett’s plans. He goes with the Master to meet Polly McLane at the train station, only to discover that Noah Bartlett has been there already. He has threatened Polly and the Master with death if they stand against him. He intends to come to the church on Sunday to stop their wedding and steal Polly for himself.  Matthew gets sucked into a web of lies and deception that will test his loyalty and inspire him to new heights of bravery to protect the innocent. From hopelessness to triumph, from victim to hero, Matthew and his friends overturn the tyranny of the Bartlett’s and cast away the shadows with new light. The final cataclysmic confrontation challenges all his preconceptions about his beloved School Master and the world in which he lives.

Mary Allen lost her husband at the tender age of twenty-two, and she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life as a widow. But her aging father protests when she has the idea to get a mail-order husband. He wants Mary’s attention for himself. If she must remarry, he wants to arrange the marriage himself, with one of the sons of his friends, the way he did Mary’s first marriage. But Mary insists on marrying a man of her own choosing, a man new to the Frontier with the energy and enthusiasm to build a new life in the West. She and her father keep having the same argument about it, and they’ll probably keep arguing about it when he walks her down the aisle. Mary only has a few days left before her groom comes to town and they meet at the altar. But Fate has other plans for Mary and her family. Mary finds herself facing a shattering reversal of her fortunes. At the same time, new and mysterious forces align to bring her the future of hope and promise she always dreamed of. When she does finally come to the altar, the life waiting for her on the other side opens up infinite horizons and unlimited potential.

No one got off the train in the tiny Western town except Kathy Sullivan, and the conductor doesn’t bother to call “All aboard!” when the train departs again. The station master disappears and Kathy finds herself alone. But the next moment, she stares in amazement as the whole town turns out in procession to escort her to the church. Kathy’s groom, Luke Ferguson, and his brother, Max, lead the crowd. Max’s wife, Annabel, takes charge of Kathy and all the wedding arrangements, and Kathy finds herself in the middle of a kind and close-knit family, who eagerly welcome her into the fold. Among them, Max and Annabel’s daughter, Adelaide, attaches herself to Kathy and insists on helping prepare her for the altar. After the service, Katy and her new family and all the townspeople repair to the house next door to the church for a reception celebration. But the fairy-tale ending Kathy dreamed of doesn’t turn out the way she planned. She and Luke must rise to the occasion to keep their family intact and discover the depth of their new love. In the sphere of beauty, intimacy, and home, Kathy finds a new family and a new calling to fill the void left by unspeakable tragedy.

Lucy Palmer doesn’t like Montana, and Montana doesn’t like Lucy Palmer. The mountains outside her train car window seem to have a mind of their own, and they seem to watch her and read her innermost thoughts. They seem to understand that she doesn’t really fit in here, that she belongs in the sheltered society of Muncie, Indiana. Somewhere out there, her groom waits to take her to her new home in those inscrutable mountains. But when she meets Adam Foley, a young cowboy turned businessman, on the train in Billings, her world flies into a tailspin. She never realized that someone could buck the stolid, heavy life of Frontier Montana to travel the world and seize his destiny for himself. But Adam gets off the train in Great Falls, leaving Lucy to travel the rest of the way to Kalispell alone. When she arrives and meets her groom, Lucy finds herself confronting a future for which she never prepared herself. She must adapt in the face of overwhelming obstacles, and overcome the devastation of betrayal to free herself from the confines of her past. In her final revelation, she discards the shackles of her preconceptions and spreads her wings to soar to the skies.