Book picks similar to
Taming the Texas Rancher by Rhonda Gibson
love-inspired-historical
love-inspired
historical-fiction
romance
The Painter's Daughter
Julie Klassen - 2015
She often walks the cliffside path along the north Devon coast, popular with artists and poets. It's where she met the handsome Wesley Overtree, the first man to tell her she's beautiful.Captain Stephen Overtree is accustomed to taking on his brother's neglected duties. Home on leave, he's sent to find Wesley. Knowing his brother rented a cottage from a fellow painter, he travels to Devonshire and meets Miss Dupont, the painter's daughter. He's startled to recognize her from a miniature portrait he carries with him--one of Wesley's discarded works. But his happiness plummets when he realizes Wesley has left her with child and sailed away to Italy in search of a new muse.Wanting to do something worthwhile with his life, Stephen proposes to Sophie. He does not offer love, or even a future together, but he can save her from scandal. If he dies in battle, as he believes he will, she'll be a respectable widow with the protection of his family.Desperate for a way to escape her predicament, Sophie agrees to marry a stranger and travel to his family's estate. But at Overtree Hall, her problems are just beginning. Will she regret marrying Captain Overtree when a repentant Wesley returns? Or will she find herself torn between the father of her child and her growing affection for the husband she barely knows?
Faith
Lori Copeland - 1998
Applicants may apply by mail. Must allow at least two months for an answer.With the matrimonial prospects in her little Michigan town virtually nonexistent, nineteen-year-old Faith, along with her two sisters, Hope and June, answers an ad for mail-order brides. Before she knows it, shes on her way to Deliverance, Texas to marry wealthy rancher Nicholas Shepherd.But from the moment she arrives in Deliverance, sparks fly between Faith, a strong-willed tomboy, and her prospective husband, a man with a strong will of his own! After a string of wedding postponements and a slew of interferences, a union between Faith and Nicholas begins to look less and less likely.In the meantime, Faith and Nicholas are beginning to care for each other, but is their matching stubbornness destined to forever be a barrier between them?
Rocky Mountain Match
Pamela Nissen - 2010
But then his brother hires Katie Ellickson. The strong-willed, confident teacher knows what it's like to be outcast, alone--and she won't give up on Joseph, even when he's ready to give up on himself. He thinks blindness is his most difficult obstacle, until he finds a bigger challenge--trying to reach Katie's heart. Will she let him? Katie has secrets that she's carried with her to the Rocky Mountains. And there's a darkness of her own in her past, which she can't escape for long....
Beauty in Disguise
Mary Moore - 2013
Concealing her stunning hair and sapphire eyes beneath a dowdy facade, she's grateful to earn her keep as companion Kate Montgomery. Until she comes face-to-face with her past in Lord Dalton, the only man she has ever loved.The debutante Dalton fell in love with years ago was beautiful beyond compare. The gentle, mysterious young woman he encounters at a country house has qualities he now values more highly—until he learns of her deception. Kate has broken his heart not once, but twice. Can faith help him see that love, like true beauty, always comes to light?
Summer of Promise
Amanda Cabot - 2012
Charlotte's letters have been uncharacteristically melancholy, and her claims that nothing is wrong ring false, so Abigail heads west to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. When her stagecoach is attacked, Wyoming promises to be anything but boring. Luckily, the heroics of another passenger, Lieutenant Ethan Bowles, save the day.Abigail plans to marry when she returns to Vermont, just as soon as she attends to her sister. As the summer passes, she finds herself drawn to this rugged land and to a certain soldier determined to persuade her to stay. When summer ends, will she go back East, or will she find her heart's true home?
Playing by Heart
Anne Mateer - 2014
But then a shocking phone call from her sister, Jewel, changes everything.With a heavy heart, Lula returns to her Oklahoma hometown to do right by her sister, but the only teaching job available in Dunn is combination music instructor/basketball coach. Lula doesn't even consider those real subjects!Determined to prove herself, Lula commits to covering the job for the rest of the school year. Reluctantly, she turns to the boys' coach, Chet, to learn the newfangled game of basketball. Chet is handsome and single, but Lula has no plans to fall for a local boy. She's returning to college and her scholarship as soon as she gets Jewel back on her feet.However, the more time she spends around Jewel's family, the girls' basketball team, music classes, and Chet, the more Lula comes to realize what she's given up in her single-minded pursuit of degree after degree. God is working on her heart, and her future is starting to look a lot different than she'd expected.
The Heiress of Winterwood
Sarah E. Ladd - 2013
. . but what comes after?Darbury, England, 1814Amelia Barrett, heiress to an ancestral estate nestled in the English moors, defies family expectations and promises to raise her dying friend’s infant baby. She'll risk everything to keep her word—even to the point of proposing to the child’s father, Graham, a sea captain she’s never met.Tragedy strikes when the child vanishes with little more than a sketchy ransom note hinting to her whereabouts. Fear for the child’s safety drives Amelia and Graham to test the boundaries of their love for this infant.Amelia’s detailed plans would normally see her through any trial, but now, desperate and shaken, she examines her soul and must face her one weakness: pride.Graham’s strength and self-control have served him well and earned him much respect, but chasing perfection has kept him a prisoner of his own discipline.Both must learn to accept God’s sovereignty and relinquish control so they can grasp the future He has for planned for them.
Bound to the Warrior
Barbara Phinney - 2013
The king sees it as a way to keep Ediva, her lands and her tenants subdued. But Ediva's embittered heart, still healing from the abuse of her first husband, will not yield so easily.Marriage never held any appeal for Adrien de Ries. Yet it is his king's will, and perhaps his Lord's, too—though he finds his faith tested daily by Ediva's staunch refusal to trust him. As a knight, Adrien survived many battles, but the fight to win Ediva's heart may be his most challenging—and rewarding.
A Constant Heart
Siri Mitchell - 2008
She was born with the face of an angel. Her father is a knight, and a small fortune has been lavished upon her. And now she is to be married to an earl. Her security is fixed, her destiny guaranteed. At least, she hopes.The Earl of Lytham has already been married once. But the beautiful woman only left him with a broken heart and the bitter taste of betrayal. Now, his only demand of Marget is that she help him win favor with the Queen.But when Marget's introduction to court is met with the jealous queen's wrath, the young bride fears she's lost her husband forever. Desperate to honor him, she'll risk everything by doing whatever it takes to recapture the heart of a man bound to the Queen in a world where love is the only forbidden luxury.
A Cowboy for Keeps
Jody Hedlund - 2021
First, bandits hold up her stagecoach, stealing all her money. Then, upon arriving in Fairplay, Colorado, she learns the man she was betrothed to as a mail-order bride has died. Homeless, penniless, and jobless, Greta and her sister are worse off than when they started.Wyatt McQuaid is struggling to get his new ranch up and running and is in town to purchase cattle when the mayor proposes the most unlikely of bargains. He'll invest in a herd of cattle for Wyatt's ranch if Wyatt agrees to help the town become more respectable by marrying and starting a family with Greta. But when old insecurities and surprising revolutions arise, can a union born out of desperation survive?
A Proper Marriage
Dorothy Love - 2014
Cast out of her father's house, Olivia hastily weds George's brother Luke whom she has known since childhood. Luke hopes that giving his brother's child a name will prove his worth, and provide a home for the woman he has long admired.An accident on the road delivers the young couple into the care of a Tennessee Quaker family. As Olivia and Luke recover from their injuries and await the birth of the child, they struggle to make peace with their pasts and to forge at last a proper marriage.Readers familiar with Dorothy Love's Hickory Ridge series will enjoy another installment of memorable characters and settings.
Calico Christmas at Dry Creek
Janet Tronstad - 2008
But when influenza claims her husband and baby, Elizabeth doesn't know if she can go on. Then a stranger approaches her with a plea she can't ignore.Jake Hargrove is desperate. His brother's death left him in charge of his two part-Sioux nieces--one an infant. Jake knows the baby can't survive the harsh western winter without a wet nurse. A marriage of convenience with this grieving mother seems to be the only answer. Fighting for the acceptance of their charges gives Jake and Elizabeth new purpose. With the Christmas season approaching, dare they hope that they also could receive the gift of love?
Hills of Nevermore
Janalyn Voigt - 2017
Shane lands face-down in the mud for his trouble, and there’s talk of shooting him. America intervenes and finds herself in an unexpectedly personal conversation with the blue-eyed preacher. Certain she has angered God in the past, she shies away from Shane. Addie Martin, another widow, invites America to help in her cook tent in Virginia City, the new mining town. Even with Addie’s teenage son helping with America’s baby, life is hard. Shane urges America to depart for a more civilized location. Neither Shane’s persuasions nor road agents, murder, sickness, or vigilante violence can sway America. Loyalty and ambition hold her fast until dire circumstances force her to confront everything she believes about herself, Shane, and God. Based on actual historical events during a time of unrest in America, Hills of Nevermore explores faith, love, and courage in the wild west.
Distant Dreams
Judith Pella - 1997
the railroad. Frustrated by society's expectations upon her gender, she longs to study more masculine subjects and is thrilled when her father grants her a tutor.James Baldwin arrives to serve as Carolina's teacher, but of more importance, he is to court Carolina's beautiful older sister, Virginia. Will expectations--and Virginia's southern charm--elicit the hoped-for proposal? Or will James and Carolina dare to acknowledge the mutual interests and feelings growing between them?