I wanted to like this book better than I did. It had elements that seemed really interesting, like the realism of a young girl without a mother who didn't realize she could become pregnant without being married and was clueless about what was happening to her body. So the doctor marries her. If that had been the thrust of the book, the learning to be married thing, then I would have been okay. But about halfway through the father of the baby comes back with his mother for some reason wanting the girl to divorce her husband, like that's likely in 1897, when the boy's family had rushed him away originally when they found out he knocked her up. But she needs the baby for some nefarious doings. Then the heroine is kidnapped. The heroine's father who never loved her, who beat her up and kicked her out when she told him she was pregnant, shows up and does more dirty deeds with the baby's evil grandmother. After she is rescued and the baby is born he apologizes later and all is forgiven. WTF? This book just jumped the shark for me. ( )

Ordered from BWB, and started reading this when I registered it. So, just had to finish it! Tommy took advantage of Ellie's innocence, and then skipped town quickly when his mama realized she was pregnant. She's so innocent, she doesn't realize that it's pregnancy, not cancer like her mother died of, when she seeks help from the new doc in town. He hires her as a housekeeper, but quickly marries her when the tongues in the 1890's town start to wag quickly. And even though she's his "convenient" wife, he quickly falls in love with her, and she with him. ( )

Written at a 5th grade reading level, full of anachronisms and way too over-reliant on external conflict. The romance is pretty much concluded by page 90. All that holds off the end of the book is a half-baked kidnapping plot and the birth of the baby.

I should knock this down to one star for its shameless treatment of American Indian themes. The secondary character Ruth is some kind of magical healer, mind-reader and future-seer, natch, and is used as a focal point of a patently ridiculous prejudice/tolerance morality play. All the good characters made a point of rejecting society's bias against Indians while only the unlikeable characters held any hard feelings toward Ruth. Would that racial bias actually worked that way! Wouldn't it be lovely if racism wasn't something otherwise nice, agreeable people who are kind to animals participated in? We might actually be able to talk about it then. ( )