He needs a wife, she needs a way out. Can she spin a tale to save her own tail? After a disastrous first marriage, Will Jeffers hasn’t the stomach for another emotionally entailed union. All he needs is a wife to cook, nurse his mother, and look after the homestead. But good women are few and far between in Colorado mining country. A mail order bride is the perfect solution. Amelia Johannasen is running for her life. Her brassy mother has decided it’s time her daughter joined the family business, shattering Amy’s dreams of marrying for love. Imagine her surprise when she is mistaken for Will Jeffers mail order bride. She has a talent for spinning tall tales but no notion of how to cook, nurse, or keep a house. Can she reach the heart of a man once burned so badly, he’s sworn off love?

A spicy western historical romantic suspense set in 1885 where east meets west. Tragedy sent Sherman Elias McHuay west twelve years ago. But his troubled past barrels in like a runaway train or—more appropriately—smacks him over the head in the form of a violet-eyed miss without a lick of common sense to her name. If one could actually determine her name. Amaris Johnston’s carefully laid plans to head west as a mail order bride ratchet up when an announcement for her impending nuptials to the son of a prominent US Senator are set to go public. Not that she’d agreed to marry in the first place. A forced engagement and her family—a conniving slew of ambitious and power-hungry tyrants—send her running for the Colorado hills. Can a slow talking sheriff and a headstrong girl bent on recklessness outwit her powerful family?

In the midst of his war-torn country, love poses the greater danger... Creating maps for the Union is less than satisfying after a war-ending injury and learning his childhood friend was in love with his wife. But now both are dead, and John Williams is left with an angry child no one can control. A flippant proposal and an attack on her person finds Elizabeth Ruthers married to a mapmaker whose only need of her is taking control of his ungovernable child but feelings quickly shift into something less platonic. And when the enemy gains vital secrets, her suspicions land her behind bars. First Place ~ IDA Winner