kirkusreviews.com
A misunderstood outlaw and his mail-order bride meet in
complicated circumstances.
Captured by a U.S. marshal, outlaw Jack Bowdre is on the way to
a nearby town to be held for trial when the stagecoach crashes, killing the
lawman. Bowdre and the pretty woman sharing the coach are stunned to
discover she’s the bride he’d sent for through a mail-order service. She’s
furious since he’d failed to mention he was a wanted criminal in the many
letters they’d shared. It turns out Lenora Kane has a few secrets of her own,
however, and sticking close to Jack might mean staying ahead of the men chasing
her, and the two make their way through the Texas landscape toward the town where
Jack has settled: Hope’s Crossing, a former hideout–turned-sanctuary where
outlaws have “decided to stop their lawless ways and get respectable.” Along
the way, they save two endangered children, but once a crooked lawman and Lenora’s
villainous former guardian come after them with a vengeance, they’ll have to
depend on their new community to help them survive, clear Jack’s name, and look
to a new, promising future. Broday (The
Outlaw’s Mail Order Bride, 2019, etc.) continues her Outlaw Mail Order
Brides historical Western romance series with an interesting premise that’s
poorly supported by clunky, clichéd writing; characters doing seemingly uncharacteristic things;
and puzzling plot points that don’t make sense if you think about them.
Disappointing.
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