Showing results by author "Janice Cole Hopkins" in All Categories

Sophie Zimmermann and her father leave Illinois after her mother dies to make the long trek on the California Trail to Genoa, near Lake Tahoe in Utah Territory, to join her aunt’s family. Sophie finds men interested in her for the first time, and she ends up taking her aunt and cousin’s advice to let Baxter Cobb court her. Baxter is a wealthy businessman that any woman should appreciate, so why can’t Sophie forget Abel Boles, the first man she meets in Genoa. Things come to a head at a baking contest.

Merle Warner is a real estate investor who has never had a permanent home of his own. When he decides to settle down, he contacts a matchmaker he finds in an old ad, telling her that he plans to travel to the location of his intended. Vanessa Acker isn't well-liked in Pinyon Falls because she's too aggressive for most people. She contacts the matchmaker several others in town rave about, hoping to relocate and start over.

Deadwood doctor, Beckett March, gets a letter from his aunt informing him that she’s sending him two women to choose from for his bride, and he panics. What’s he supposed to do with twins?

Jillian Barker's father and brothers were harsh drunks, so when the older brother closest to her age decides to run away to the West, she talks him into taking her with him since he’s the most responsible brother. However, when they get to St. Louis he decides to stay there. The wagon master refuses to take an unmarried woman with him, and she doesn't want to remain with her brother who is working in a saloon. Her only option is to wed. The wagon master assures her he can find someone who will agree to an annulment in Oregon, but can she risk another man lording it over her?

Candace Joyner gets to her destination as a mail-order bride, only to find that her intended owns a saloon with working girls upstairs. Learning that he might eventually expect her to work for him, she hides under the tarp of a mountain man's wagon when he leaves town with his winter supplies. She's watched Jude Mason, and he appears to be kind, and most likely a Christian. She'd rather take her chances with him than with the dictatorial, unscrupulous saloon owner. But life on the mountain in the winter is tougher than she imagined.

When Sadie Alexander’s employer dies, she knows she’ll need to leave the household. Desperate, she sees an ad in a newspaper for a bride, so she mails a hastily written letter and travels to California on a wagon train. When she arrives, Mr. Laird is away with his construction business, and his older friend has been left to meet her.

Fern Russell gets caught disobeying her parents and seeing a man they don't approve of. They send her off to a boarding school in the little-known place of Big Lick. Fern is surprised to discover she likes the family she's assigned to stay with more than she expected. Their shy, older son touches her heart, but she won't be disloyal to the beau she left behind. Waiting is hard, but that's exactly what she'll have to do to find out what the future holds. She bakes both men forget-me-not cookies. Which one will end up not forgetting her?

Cordell Atwood’s best friend and boss found a successful mail-order bride through a matchmaker, and Cord decides it’s time for him to marry since he’s started his own Texas horse ranch. With the forward town flirt casting her eyes from Marshall to him, he decides to write to the matchmaker as well. When Miss Moriah Williams arrives from Georgia, he’s never seen such a beautiful woman, but the moment he opens his mouth, she turns to ice.

Ingrid Palmer doesn't intend to ever marry. Her cruel father has taught her not to risk such misery. Instead, she helps her mother in her dress shop, volunteers at an orphanage, and does as much as she can to help the women's suffrage movement in Kansas City. However, when a brilliant newspaper reporter wants to write about women's rights, Ingrid's world begins to gradually shift.

Mason Greene returns home from the war, but people see his episodes and want to have him committed to a mental hospital. However, no matter how hard he tries, he can't stop being drawn back into the fighting in his mind.

Simon Carlson couldn’t learn to read and therefore failed at school. Thanks to his bitter father, most people see him as a simpleton or worse. When a new schoolteacher comes to Flagstaff, she treats him as a normal person, even after she finds out that he can’t read or write. She soon has problems of her own, however.

As the blacksmith in Pinyon Falls, Silas Barrett hasn’t had much luck finding a woman who’d let him court her. Since Marshall Walker and Cord Atwood found good women who suited them from a matchmaker, Silas decides to contact her too....

Trace Durham was injured in combat, given a purple heart, and discharged from the army. As time goes by, and he’s still confined to a wheelchair, his spirits plummet. But meeting a feisty widow whose husband had been killed while serving in the military makes him take a closer look at himself.

Boone Malone’s father and brothers were town drunks. When Boone gets drunk and does some things he would have never done sober, he thinks he has their tainted blood, and decides never to marry or have children.

Marshall Walker has built his successful ranch over years of hard work. He hasn’t had time to seek a wife. But when his brother dies, leaving him the custody of two nieces, he decides now is the time–after all, he’s 31 years old. So he contacts a noted matchmaking service to speed the process since the girls are on their way, and he needs a wife as soon as possible.

Brooke Bennett had the best news ever. After years of trying, she and David were going to have a baby. She knew her husband would be just as thrilled as she was and she prepared him a special celebratory supper, dressed up, and waited for him. However, he never came home. Later that night, she clutched a note she found on her pillow into a crumpled mess not believing what he’d written. David was leaving her and the megachurch where he’d been the senior pastor. They'd hit some snags in their marriage, but something like this had never crossed her mind.

When Garrett Oliver’s grandmother requests help on her ranch after her husband dies, Garrett’s father chooses him to leave Cades Cove, Tennessee, and go to Indian Territory. When he gets there, Garrett suspects his grandma wants to match him with her beautiful half-Chickasaw friend, but the more he sees of Wren Hudson, the less he resists his grandmother’s efforts.

After his fiancée jilts him for not spending enough time with her, Avery Brown goes to San Francisco as a guest musician. Vowing to avoid such entanglements in the future, he hadn’t expected to meet such a beautiful young lady as Tessa McDonald or be so attracted to her. However, he won’t change his resolve. Astor is the third woman to be jealous of his violin, and he's had enough.

Francisca Guinn learned to bake and make fruitcakes from her deceased mother, who had worked at the Collin Street Bakery. Fran had changed the recipe to suit her tastes, but she sold them during the holidays to make extra money. When she meets Trent Jones, she tries not to give him special attention because most Texans don't like her Mexican heritage on her mother's side. However, as he remains persistent, she begins to wonder if he might be different, but will his high-society parents accept her?

Lily Brandt was glad when her father decided to move the family from Duluth to a farm in Iowa. She didn’t want to keep encountering her former fiancé and his new wife. But would Iowa turn out to be any better with her sister’s flirting and the handsome new neighbor’s quiet ways? She hadn’t gotten over Calem’s rejection yet, so she wasn’t ready for a new relationship, and she had her grandmother’s quilt to remind her to be cautious.