Showing results by author "Susannah Calloway" in All Categories

Governess Dottie Wilson adores Sam and Beth, her charges. When her services are replaced by a tutor, she is devastated. Not knowing what to do, she turns to her friend for help. Bertie steers her toward becoming a mail order bride. Dottie agrees, and is matched with a wealthy rancher in Texas.

Laura Bailey doesn’t know where to turn. With her trust in her family crushed by betrayal, she throws herself on the mercy of a matrimonial agency. Before she knows it, she’s on her way to Mine’s Place, Colorado, seeking only a marriage of convenience–and a new start.

Ruth McCann has a plan for her future. She’ll marry, settle down in her hometown of Stowe, Vermont, and raise a family with the man her father picked out for her. Though she doesn’t love Peter Stillarch, she’s resigned to the life laid out in front of her. Some people, she knows, never find true love.

The last thing Bonnie Ross wants is to leave her little home in Staunton, Virginia. But when her three stubborn brothers get the idea of moving into their heads, there’s no talking them out of it.

As a servant in a wealthy household, Emelia Brandon is subject to hard work, little food, and great hardship. She has no choice but to become a mail order bride, flee west to Arizona, and marry a man she’s never seen.

What is Valerie Mayfield to do? Her stepfather sold her into marriage with a shady saloon owner in a small town in Texas. But her husband-to-be has no intention of marrying her. He wants her as a saloon wench. Risking her life, Valerie flees during a blizzard, finding the only person in Texas she can trust....

Grace Montgomery is the oldest of five sisters…and the only one who isn’t married. At 24, she’s tired of pitying looks and being called a spinster. Desperate, she accepts the proposal of a much older man. As the date for the wedding draws near, she realizes she’s made a terrible mistake. She cannot marry this man. It would be like marrying her father. She flees and boards a train with no destination in mind.

While all her childhood friends are getting married and having children, Thelma Taylor can’t seem to find a beau in all of Hartford, Vermont. When she loses her employment and is swamped with frustration, her mother agrees: it’s time she started over, somewhere new. The mail order bride agency in town is the answer. Before a month goes by, she’s engaged to James McCoy, a widower in Colorado with two children. Despite her apprehension, Thelma sets out for her new home, hoping to be happy and settled by Christmas.

Nancy Grant’s stepfather bets her hand in marriage during a poker game–and loses. Now she is supposed to marry the repugnant Carl Kingsford. Nancy has no choice but to flee. When she hears about a mail-order bride agency, she takes a leap of faith and applies. Now she is to marry a man she has never met—Jesse Cartwright, a rancher from Mine’s Place, Colorado. He is a stranger, but hopefully, with him she will find a home of her own and be able to celebrate a Merry Christmas.

Edie Kendall lives a busy life in Boston, Massachusetts, doing her best to care for her widowed father. But when he tells her he’s marrying her off to a wealthy but unethical businessman twice her age, she is forced to flee. There’s nothing left but to start over somewhere new. When she answers an advert for a mail order bride in Fort Riggins, Montana, she allows herself to hope she’s about to meet the man of her dreams. But Curtis Emerson, the man she’s agreed to marry, has no intention of marrying; indeed, he has no idea Edie exists.

When Courtney Atwood’s husband dies in an accident, she does her best to mourn him as she ought. But they never really loved each other, and their marriage was simply one of convenience. Raising her five-year-old son on her own becomes a challenge for more than one reason--how can she explain that there should be more to life than simply accepting what you’re given?

Born into wealth, Elizabeth Hudson never dares resist her harsh parents’ demands. One day, her father Gerald orders her into marriage. Forced into a carriage with her fiancé, she is involved in a terrible accident that leaves her crippled for life. Her fiancé rejects her, and Gerald quickly finds her a new, even nastier fiancé. Elizabeth plans her escape by writing a marriage agency.

Angie Rosewood makes a big mistake: She falls in love with her employer’s son, Marcus Donahue. By some miracle, he falls for her, too. If they are caught speaking to each other, she will be fired. Marcus swears he’ll take care of things, but he doesn’t get the chance. After Marcus leaves on a business trip, Angie is summoned to the housekeeper’s office. The head housekeeper takes joy in telling Angie she’s been seen kissing Marcus, and her employment is terminated. When she reads an advert for mail-order brides, it seems the only answer to her prayers.

Her husband is dead. She's pregnant. And her odious brother-in-law is forcing her hand in marriage. Betty Rochester can't abide the thought of Garrett having anything to do with her child. Or her. She has to escape and fast. Her only hope is to get as far away from Boston—and Garrett—as she can. But Betty has run out of options. Except one. Her sister became a mail-order bride, so why can't she? But Betty doesn't count on her mail-order husband rejecting her when he discovers she's with child. Now she's thousands of miles from home with a man who can barely look her in the face.

Angie Bale has reason to be bitter. With a disinterested father determined to marry her off to an unscrupulous, dangerous businessman, she feels entirely alone in the world. But it was the tragic loss of her mother years before that caused her to turn from her faith. Desperate for a new start in life, Angie responds to a letter in the Matrimonial Times. A marriage of convenience is all she expects from the union. But things suddenly get complicated when she falls for the man she’s agreed to marry—and even more complicated when her past tracks her down.

Jenny Jansen has always served at Thompson Manor. As the head cook, life is steady, but she wants something more, and she dreams of moving out West to pursue her freedom. There is just one problem—Roy Olson. They grew up together at the manor, and he fell in love with her long ago. One morning at the market, Jenny stumbles across a new matrimonial agency. This gives Jenny the break she’s looking for—the chance to become a mail order bride. But can she truly muster the courage to leave Roy and all she’s ever known and risk everything for an unknown groom?

Nellie Williams is tired of the mundane, everyday sort of life she leads in Middleburg, Virginia. She longs for adventure, excitement, and true love—but she stands little chance of finding any of it if she stays put at home. When her cousin tells her about matrimonial agencies, her imagination takes flight at once. She can just see it now—being matched with a handsome cowboy in the Wild West, raising children, fighting off outlaws. But as she starts her journey toward the future, the fulfillment of her dreams is far more than she bargained for.

With both parents working all hours and four younger brothers at home, the care and keeping of the household is squarely on her shoulders. When her father forces her to find a job in addition to everything else, it proves to be too much. Desperate for a way out, Mandy agrees to become a mail-order bride and marry a man she’s never met—a ranch hand named Matthew Bostwick, in Mine’s Place, Colorado. But traveling from Boston to Colorado is just the beginning of Mandy’s journey.

Mallory Stewart’s father arranges a marriage between her and the town’s mayor. The mayor is an odious man, and Mallory wants nothing to do with him. She escapes the marriage when he is arrested for stealing from the town’s treasury. Frank Griffin needs a wife. But in Spring Valley, Texas, potential wives are hard to come by. Frank learns of a mail order bride agency, and thinking himself a fool, he sends an application. A month later, he receives a letter from a lady back East who agrees to marry him.

After being turned down by yet another employer, nurse Adele Cowen is in dire straits—her rent is due, her fiancé has abandoned her, and she has nothing left to keep her in New York. When a chance to marry the mayor of a small town in Texas arises, she jumps at the chance. But when bandits strike her train, Adele is left alone in the middle of a strange land. It seems impossible when she stumbles across a lonely, sick man in need of her help. The stranger is Preston Wilder, and he’s a bounty hunter in search of the Silver Gang—the very gang that robbed her train.