Ella Grace Mulvaney, a twenty-two-year-old orphan, lives in the Howard House Orphanage for Girls in Silverpines, Oregon. Along with her eight “sisters,” she has been well educated in decorum, all aspects of taking care of a home, and every subject her spinster guardians deem necessary to survive in a man’s world. When tragedy strikes, Ella Grace is left in charge of the local Inn. Trying to save it from being sold to disinterested East coast buyers, she decides to send for a mail-order husband who would also purchase the Inn. Michael Karson, tired of running the family hotel in Wisconsin, desires to head West and answers Ella Grace’s ad in the Grooms Gazette. He likes the idea of purchasing an Inn far from home but isn’t sure about marrying someone sight unseen. Surely, just answering the ad isn’t a commitment and buying the Inn doesn’t mean marrying the girl. Will love draw these two young people together or will a love-struck, dangerous miner, Michael’s tyrannical father, and a rifle-toting spinster guardian keep them apart?