Old Timey Holiday Kitchen

Romance and Recipes


Two ladies named Lucinda.

How will Lucy win the love of a man who longs for a different Lucinda? And what about the men chasing Ty and Lucy? Will they return?

She will need more than cookies to win her forced groom's heart.

Gossip forces them into a marriage. After all, Minnie's been trusted to raise her precious baby sister. She and her husband are determined to make the best of this hurried marriage, but strange things keep happening. Then, Granny is kidnapped...

Will getting the old woman back take the life of the man she's only now coming to love?

Can a man love a woman who drives him crazy?

Rosemary Mast left her Pennsylvania Dutch community to find a home with distant relatives in Kansas. Only, none of her family was there.

What she found was a man desperate for help with his orphaned niece and nephew. It seemed like the perfect solution to work for him, and she agreed to go with him.

How will this couple form a sound marriage and provide a good home for the orphaned twins in this sweet historical Christian romance? Can a man love a woman who drives him crazy?


Westward Home and Hearts Mail-Order Brides

Mail-order brides will tame the West!


She craves to be needed. He just wants a mother for his children. Can love grow out of this marriage of convenience?

Shrug Brandt is stubborn, but his children desperately need a mother. To get them one, he'll accept a wife—a wife that his heart refuses to love and then lose. He’ll give the spinster bride his name, but he won't share his heart with her.

Will this holiday surprise heal this family's grief and give Winnie her Christmas wish?

Priscilla Pringle fell in love with the man who wrote such a tender letter. Too bad that the man she meets is his complete opposite. She'd leave and return immediately. But what would happen to the orphaned piglet she is bottle feeding?

Will she stay after the piggy is weaned? Is Jack the only one who needs to change to make their marriage work?


The Proxy Brides

Married before meeting, these couples are in for surprises!


Darrell learns that love can sneak up on a person but so can danger!

Can a man who didn't agree to marry a proxy bride and a woman pursued by a murderer make a life together? What happens when the danger finds her? In a town with no law, how will she survive?

A sweet historical romance laced with mystery and suspense...

Faced with an opportunity to prove he can be a successful businessman, Bode is desperate to buy into it the business using his inheritance. His trustee, however, won't release the necessary funds unless Bode marries that the man's choice of brides by proxy.

Will Violet stay with him after she learns how Bode makes his living? Why do attempts on his life start when he makes it clear to the people around him that he plans to stay married?

This miracle child is not Frankie's, so why does she risk her marriage to keep the little girl?

Frances "Frankie" Elder is brutally frank. It's what led to her firing by the school board. The advertisement for a bride/teacher seems heaven sent. The fact that her groom demands a proxy marriage doesn't faze her. She heads west sure that she had entered into a business arrangement rather than a real marriage.

What should be a business arrangement quickly becomes a matter of the heart. The three would be a happy family, if only the kidnappers stopped coming at night. Who's sending them and how can they keep their adopted child safe?

Renie gladly accepts Harland's proposal before he leaves to join the Army of the West. She doesn't see him for two years.

When Renie arrives in the small western town of Harmony, the man who meets her train seems different from the sweetheart who slipped the small ring on her finger years earlier.

Will she be able to reach the tenderness buried deep inside of a war-scarred man or will the town feud poison their marriage? And what happens when that feud threatens her very life?


Christmas Romances

The magic of the holiday!


 Desperate, Wynona Thorne takes her future into her own hands by answering an advertisement to be a mail-order bride.

Neither the groom or bride are completely transparent in their letters. He travels with a circus. She's, well, stout! When they meet, Cornelius Branard refuses to marry Wynona.

Stranded at the circus, what will Wynona do? Can she trust the strong giant who is built so much like her terrible brother? Wynona will need to decide quickly as danger follows her from her hometown

Married to a man in a mask, Kitty begins to wonder about her husband. Who or what lies under the hood he wears? Why is she constantly shadowed by a companion? Worse yet, why does her mind seem to confuse her scarred husband and his handsome cousin?

What will Kitty find when her husband’s mask is removed? With a murderer on the loose, will she live to find out?

She craves to be needed. He just wants a mother for his children. Can love grow out of this marriage of convenience?

Shrug Brandt is stubborn, but his children desperately need a mother. To get them one, he'll accept a wife—a wife that his heart refuses to love and then lose. He’ll give the spinster bride his name, but he won't share his heart with her.

Will this holiday surprise heal this family's grief and give Winnie her Christmas wish?


The Belles of Wyoming


Using a new name, Grace Winkelman fled west to teach in a small town. How could she anticipate her past following her that far?

Errol Marsden wandered for years, taking his cobbler's wagon from town to town fixing shoes. His heart broke when his young wife died four years before. Little wonder that he's shocked to glimpse her on a street in Fort Bridger. Needing answers, he follows her to Belle.

Will he understand why she faked her death? When the couple is drawn into the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Grace's aunt, can they work together or will old lies stand in their way?

The marshal shoved the envelope and the badge her way. With the quick scrawl of her name on the oath, Delia became a marshal…

Delia Perkins keeps that badge a secret and goes on with her life as a teacher in the small town of Belle, Wyoming. After all, she's only a courier.

While waiting for her contact, she's drawn to the man she's sure is a part of a gang of rustlers. She’s a good girl, but he’s an almost irresistible man!

When the two are forced into a sudden marriage, will Roland be able to catch the thieves without losing either his wife or his daughter?



Marianne's Mail Order Brides


He’s no spring chicken. She’s not a summer blossom. Together, they add up to a marriage made out of necessity.

Roland Devers vowed to stay a bachelor after his fiancée broke off their engagement. He never expected to raise a child, especially not a girl. His brother’s death lands the four-year-old at his livery and into his care.

Lilah Jo Henry struggles through life. Her husband’s death only adds to those struggles. Her sixteen-year-old daughter’s scandalous behavior gives Lilah the push she needs to move the two of them away.

A matchmaker’s advertisement and the promise of marriage to a stranger seem the only way to make that happen. Will a mature couple risk falling in love?

She wants him. He wants to keep her alive in this suspenseful novella set in historic Denver.

Maggie Jorgensen knows an escaped criminal is stalking her. U.S. marshal Reg Parker has a solution--send her to Denver as a mail-order bride.

After his passionate kiss, Maggie is confused. Why would Reg send her to another man? And why is her Denver groom missing?


Suffrage Spinsters 

Not as dedicated to the cause as they are to love.


The threat that sends the heroine running with a handsome lawyer forces them into marriage. Will love follow?

Sylvia's secret teaching leads her into danger. Thisdanger sends her running for safety. Dodging into a hall to escape her pursuer, she finds that safety at a suffragette rally.

What an odd place to fall instantly in love! Who would expect to meet a handsome man in a women’s rally?

A quick marriage and threats to her new husband’s life make Sylvia realize that some secrets have to come out into the open.

Obedient. Rigid.

Those words had described her once. Clarice watched that life stifle her niece, Sylvia. Desperate to help her, she had convinced the young woman to leave her father's home, and Clarice had gone with her.

She now spent her days aiding her dear friend in the campaign for the rights of women. While others found that satisfying, Clarice wanted something more. But did that something more truly involve the man from her past?

Does such a thing as a second chance at love really exist when hurt and ambition stands in its way?


Desperate & Determined 

Standalone romances


Two people who belong nowhere and no one find a chance at love.

Massachusetts, 1861

Fiona and Milo each have reasons for agreeing to a marriage of convenience. Stuck on a farm together, they battle their demons as well as the growing attraction between them.

Unfortunately, Fiona's demons are very real and intent on taking her away.

True love picked a terrible time to grab Ginger Snap’s heart.

Ginger saw the man she would love forever. Theodore knows her only as a scruffy boy.

Will he see beyond her disguise and poverty to the woman underneath?

Add in a corrupt sheriff and the gold thieves who are trailing Ginger. This makes it an adventurous and sweet western romance.

Tamsyn Glasson has a secret. Hopefully, the man who invited her west will marry her before he discovers it. Otherwise, where will she go?

For Deke Collingwood, marriage is more about the future than business. He is creating a ranching empire, and this woman will play a key role in providing the heir for it. Not that he expected the first baby to arrive only days after she arrives.

Will the tough rancher summon up enough tenderness to accept the secret baby and also woo a wife who fears men?

Twins as different as the sun from the moon--can one sister imitate the other?

She calls herself Elspeth. How long will Liza be able to keep up the ruse? If she thought her groom would accept her as herself, she would abandon her sister’s plot.

No, he wants her twin. Liza desperately needs him to learn to love her before Adam discovers who he really married.

Can liars ever prosper? Will Adam be able to forgive her when he discovers that he mistakenly married the wrong woman?

A cat, an accident, and a pile of mixed-up letters send a bride to a man she otherwise would never have met. Only time will tell if she and this new marriage can survive the match.

Beau LeFevre abandons a hopeless future to venture west. The only thing he needs before he leaves is a wife. When the elegant woman arrives from the matchmaker, he marries her wondering all the while what made the matchmaker send this bride to him.

How can he make a marriage work with this spoiled woman? Life on the trail leads him to believe someone made a mistake!


Free? What does Lucinda Kilbourne want to escape from by leaving Knotty Pine? Why does she need to use a false name to flee?

Lucinda’s father puts her on a train. He is determined she will not break up a marriage simply to have her own way. Instead, he will send her to his autocratic sister in New York.

On the eastbound train, Lucinda meets Maggie Jorgensen. After the two strike up a conversation, they realize each has what the other wants. It is simple enough to switch places. Lucinda will become Maggie. More than that, she will leave her self-centered behavior behind her and be more like Lucy Wallins. Since that woman won the man she had wanted for herself, her life will improve if she imitates the other Lucinda—or so she believes.

The rich rancher she expects does not meet her at the depot. Rather, a poor farmer with ill-fitting clothing welcomes her to Pines Bluff. Andy Anderssen is in a tough situation. His mother has injured her hand, and the wound will not heal. She needs help to harvest the garden and preserve food for the winter. Also, Andy’s crops are struggling due to a drought. The only thing he can look forward to is a good, Swedish bride.

The beautiful woman he meets at the train is all he could want in a bride—except she cannot speak the language his family uses and her hands are soft. She has no idea how to do the work needed on the farm.

Lucinda decides to stay temporarily. Will she convince Andy to become a rancher and hopefully become wealthy? Can she be content with a poor farmer who excites a passion in her heart?

Forced to leave!

Glory has little time to grieve when her mother dies. Father almost immediately joins a wagon train headed for Colorado. No matter that autumn is closing in on them, he refuses to miss out on the chance to mine for gold. He and the others in the train believe they will get rich before miners come out in the spring to take advantage of the Colorado find.

She has no choice. Glory promised her dying mother, and she will keep that promise by caring for her father. Except, her father dies on the trail.

What will she do? As a woman alone, she cannot continue with the train. It is a quandary. She cannot safely go back to Missouri either.

The train’s scout may have the solution to her problem. His answer that leads to a rushed marriage at the wrong time with a man who is Heaven sent.

She will need him to survive the odd happenings. Why are men pursing her father and what do they want from her now that he has died?

A mail-order match gone awry leads to love and suspense!

A panicked woman frantically searches the St. Louis dock for her sister. Instead, Veronica meets a man who expected to marry the girl.


Robbie MacTavish never thought to write away for a wife. After his wife’s death years earlier, he decided never to remarry. His aunt has other ideas and writes to a friend of a friend. When Veronica appears and not his supposed bride, Robbie suddenly grows much more interested in marrying.

Will he be able to convince this woman that he needs her as his wife while they race against time to find her missing sister?

Will two broken hearts be able to find love and make a family together? 

Revenge stalks a couple who are determined to do that very thing in 1861 Minnesota.

Set on a farm, this sweet romance features a delightful child with a lovable dog thrown in. If you enjoy cozy, sweet romances, this is a must read.

He wants her, needs her. But, will he ever find a way to express his emotions to her?

Michael Brewster needs a wife as he sets up a new business. That’s all! No complications or tender feelings will soften his hard heart or get in the way of his plans to build an empire.

Why didn’t she warn him about the baby? How can he want a woman he doesn’t entirely trust?

Dun, a former Pinkerton agent, finally has what he considers a hometown. All that is missing is a bride. 

Easy to fix! He simply writes away for one. There's no way he could know the wild adventure she brings.
And will he believe what he learns about his own birth?

This is a standalone novel. Characters from A Bride for Boss do appear in it, but one can easily read this book without first reading that one. If you read A Bride for Boss, find out the rest of Dun's story.

Chicken thieves, rustlers, and a corrupt town marshal! What a time for a rancher to take on a bride he doesn’t know.

Ike Davis struggles to understand the meaning of people's expressions. He recognizes that about himself. It's his main reason for avoiding the town and its residents. Will marrying really change that?


Mae Williams arrives in Montana to claim what is owed her father. He saved Davis during the war. Now marrying Mae becomes Davis's way of paying back the debt.

Can anything good come when the man is forced by honor to marry a woman who's not like he expected?

Will a strange coincidence allow her tormentor to become the love of her life?

Desperate, Elsie Fox answers an advertisement for a mail-order wife who is also a trained nurse. And she was desperate. After studying for years in a medical school where the male students tormented her, she could not find a hospital or even a small community that would accept her as a doctor.
Her Wyoming groom turns out to be Barnaby Tanner, one of her college tormentors. Elsie wonders if she has been given a chance to prove her skills or if her career has ended before it even starts.

Will their marriage be a second chance or a disaster?