A Stranger's Wife

Title: A Stranger's Wife (1999)
Author: Maggie Osborne (Warner)
Period: American-Western (1875-6 AZ/Colorado Territories)
Grade: D+

That's it? Some of the review for A Stranger's Wife implied it was the best thing this side of Flowers from the Storm. It kinda sucked.

Say you are running to become the first Governor of Colorado? And say your wife has "disappeared" after a house fire killed her child? What do you do? 'Cause I don't think even Karl Rove would have suggested searching women's prisons to find your wife's doppelganger and then blackmailing said doppelganger into masquerading as your missing wife until after the election. At which time you'll send her off to Europe and create a cover story your wife "died". Scratch that. Machiavelli would have though that was over the top.

If you can ignore the ridiculous premise (which I can't), Osborne offers an interesting and complex heroine. Lily is no virgin and no shrinking violet. She ran away from home with one man, took up with an outlaw, has an illegitimate daughter, and did time for murder. If she wasn't involved in a stupid, nonsensical plot with a vapid hero I could dig her. Quinn is a spineless and bland hero who allows himself to be cajoled by his political advisor into supporting policy (mining deregulation) and committing acts (see doppelganger convict wife) he knows to be immoral. He isn't present as a complex politician trying to make necessary compromises, he is a pawn.

The how and why of Lily and Quinn's romance is pretty pointless. They are in lust from the start and strike a bargain to become lovers. After some pretty watered-down sex scenes they fall in love. That's it. I'd expect that sort of hash from a naive heroine, but Lily has been around the block. She spends the remainder of the novel selflessly hiding her love so as not to complicate their agreed upon parting and hamper his governor bid. That she falls for such a twit makes her less likeable.

The subplot with the missing wife is so hackneyed it defies description and turns into a mini-gothic when Lily suspects that her lover is trying to kill her. Also, when Quinn sends for Lily's daughter he announces he was planned pass her off as his wife's niece. Even though his wife's life-long melancholy is, in-part, because of the childhood deaths of her siblings.

A Stranger's Wife is one WTF? moment after another.

Song of the Willow

Title: Song of the Willow (1993)
Author: Charlotte McPherren (BMI)
Period: American-Western (1881 Arizona Territory)
Grade: B-


I've been in the romance doldrums for quite awhile now. I haven't read a great romance in so long that even an average romance looks good to me now. So I'm acknowledging that I'm grading on a curve here.

Song of the Willow is pretty standard Old West fare that involves cattle rustling, a government agent hero from back east, and a tomboy heroine. Rider Sinclair masquerades as disrespectable Army officer/ranch foreman in an effort to uncover a robbery and smuggling ring. He's been ordered to infiltrate the Vaughn family's cattle rustling operation and its connection to the mysterious boss man. Rider's orders involve seducing Vaughn's beautiful, but unconventional daughter. Rider falls in love and marries Willow in short order never telling her about his role with the government or his original seduction scheme.

Willow herself is the book's saving grace. She is a smart and thoughtful young woman who has been raised more as a boy than a girl. She doesn't reject the norms and conventions of womanhood like so many central casting romance heroines; she just simply doesn't understand them. Miriam, a widowed boarding house owner and town busybody, takes Willow under her wing and offers her instruction in dress and deportment. The strength of Song of the Willow is that she chooses to undergo the transformation for herself to increase her standing in the community, not to impress the hero. She is a smart heroine who doesn't take foolish or needless risks until the book unravels a bit at its conclusion.

The book struggles when Willow character metamorphoses from a smart and tough heroine to a typical space cadet who needs to be saved from disasters of her own making. The book also telegraphs that big reveal about the identity of the mysterious boss man. On the bright side, that the boss man shares his names with that spastic nut from American Idol gave me a chuckle. Song of the Willow is one of only two McPherren books in print, so sadly there will never be any resolution to the shotgun romance of Willow's brother and his Mexican lover. Song of the Willow was an enjoyable read with a generally above average heroine. I’m on the look out for her other book, Love and Fortune.