Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖 
Feels: 🦋🦋  
Emotional Depth: 💔💔  
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡ 
Romance: 💞💞 
Sensuality: 💋💋 
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑 
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥 
Humor: Yes

(These are all personal preference on a scale of 1-5 (yours ratings may vary depending what gives you feels and how you prefer you sex scenes written, etc) except the Steam Scale which follows our chart from The Ton and Tartans Book Club )

Should I read in order? 
I am following the chronological order of Montgomery/Taggert series on Deveraux’s website (though many say her publication order will be better as her writing style evolved that way!). This one is okay as a standalone, but I think you would get more enjoyment out of it if you at least read ‘Ring’s story, which is Mountain Laurel. ‘Ring is in this story and it will also give some background on the family. (The other prior books were set back a bit in time and not as relatable to this story line)

Basic plot:
Carrie Montgomery has 7 older brothers and she’s been determined to find her own way despite their meddling. She runs a matchmaking business for mail order brides but when she comes across a picture of a man with this two children, it calls to her and she knows she must go to him. He wants a woman with strength and a farming background that can help him turn his farm around. Carrie has led a pampered life and knows nothing about farming – but she knows she can provide this man what he needs in life despite that.

Give this a try if you want:
- Low steam – theres 1 full scene (short and vague) and a few remembered, alluded to scenes/kisses
- Plenty of outside drama – interfering family members, missing child, past coming back to haunt them, etc
- You love children in the story – Our hero Josh has 2 children and they have lots of sweet page time in the book
- Western America – This one takes place in 1865 (I don’t believe there was mention of the Civil War) - most of the book takes place at a small town out West called Eternity
- Mail order bride trope
- Class difference feel – Josh is quite poor, Carrie comes from money
- I marked this as older hero but I’m not sure how old Josh is – he was married before and has 2 kids, Carrie is 19 so it feels like age gap but I didn’t catch his age

My thoughts:
I know I’ve been pooing on everyone’s Deveraux loving parade with my reading of this series lol. I’M SORRY. This one though, really I thought it was one of the best I’ve read of the series. I still didn’t love it. But I didn’t hate it. 

There was some humor in this story, cuteness and sweetness from the kids. It didn’t have quite the level of craziness some of her other books had so I appreciated that. As usual, I wish a bit more time had been spent on the romance development and the character background of the hero and heroine instead of a lot of outside drama. 

The ending did get a bit bonkers and while it was resolved, I wish it had been a little more...tidy? I’m not sure, maybe an epilogue would have helped, but that might be resolved when reading the other siblings stories.

Deveraux does has a bad habit of including fatfobic remarks in her books (I’ve noted these in a number of them so far) and I saw it a bit here too, including a focus on appearance. These are annoying to me, mainly because I happened to notice them in one of the first books I read by her and now they stand out really bad to me. I can’t unsee it sadly. But, it’s not a large part of the book.

Things like: 
-‘Ring (heroine’s older brother) calling her friends The Ugly Horde and the uglies
-When the heroine meets the hero and he tells her about all the accomplishments his mail order bride will have (plowing skills, raising animals, cooking, shearing sheep, etc), the heroine is only worried about well “Is she pretty?”
-Multiple characters are referred to as ‘fat’ always in a negative way
-Even in the authors notes (which were about another book and I’m not sure why they were included there) it talked about how she didn’t eat or sleep for 3 days and she STILL didn’t lose anyway and I was like ahhhhh I can’t get away from the focus on bodies!!!

But anyway, this one was generally more enjoyable for me. I’d say I liked it the most so far of all the books I’ve tried in the series. 

Content Warnings:

Parental abandonment of children (hero’s ex wife leaves the kids)
Missing child scene – it’s resolved within a chapter
Toxic family members
Heroine’s brother calls her group of friends the “Ugly Horde” and the “uglies”
Some fatfobic comments – fat, overblown, overweight (always used negatively or about someone unlikable)
Feelings of entitlement and ignorance – heroine comes across the hero’s run down house for the first time and thinks 
<i>
Carrie thought it was odd that he could see how appalling the place was yet he hadn’t done anything about it.
</i>
As someone who has been unable to afford things this just sounds so ignorant to me. There’s no money so of course he couldn’t fix the things that needed to be fixed, it’s not like he did it on purpose.

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes – I had the large print version so pages might be weird

Pg 165 – kiss
Pg 192 – kisses
Pg 216 – sex scene (pretty vague, virignity loss for her. I’m assuming missionary and I think they were by a river???)
Pg 224 – brief, remembered scenes
Pg 255 – kiss
(There were a few more one sentences kisses not mentioned because I got lazy)
Total pages 349