Montana Bride

As far as romance novels go, this one rates a C in my book, but in the category of writing and novels in general, this one gets an F. Let me explain:

Why the C grade?
1. Minus one letter grade for boring sex: Descriptions of sexual encounters are filled with laughable, trite lines like "His tongue plunged into her mouth, mimicking what he wanted to do to her body." (p262) and "He responded with a deep kiss that mimicked the ultimate act that all this foreplay was leading up to." (p306). Epic fail.
2. Minus half a letter grade for the awful caricature of a Chinese character: The character of Bao Lin is frequently referred to as "the Chinaman" (as opposed to, say, "the man from China," a phrase which references his culture and national show more origin rather than essentializing him by "race"). His dialogue consists almost exclusively of fortune-cookie one liners that begin "Confucius say…" The author has replaced the usual "noble savage" depiction of Native Americans in westerns with a new "noble savage." Shame on you.
3. Minus half a letter grade for incomplete research: For the most part, the time period and setting are well-researched, which is why this is only a half-letter-grade deduction. My advice to the author: study up on Mendelian genetics before you make this the crux of a plot point.

Why the F grade?
1. Minus one letter grade for "information dumps": It's tolerated in romance writing, but it's unacceptable in any other genre. More than half of this 400+ page book is taken up by info dumps. Instead of labeling the chapters by number (chapter one, chapter two, etc.), they should have been called "This is the chapter where I tell you all about the heroine's life up until now and why you should like her" or "This is the chapter where I show you how much research I did into logging." Snooze.
2. Minus one letter grade for poor character development: Our hero and heroine end up the same after 400 pages of story (including reams of backstory) as they were at the beginning. No growth, no change, no point in the story and a waste of time for the reader.
3. Minus a full letter grade for dull plotting: There's a flat, two-dimensional antagonist, but far more excitement comes out of the suspense built from the 10 year-old boy's trek into the snowstorm than out of any man vs. man type of conflict. More snoozing.
4. Minus a full letter grade for the awful caricature of a Chinese character: see #2 above. When grading this as a novel, not comparing it strictly to other romance novels, I find the insulting caricature less forgivable.
5. Minus half a letter grade for poor writing: The many hackneyed turns of phrase and uninspired writing should never have survived a writer's critique group or an editor's red pen.

The advance reader's copy which I got through LibraryThing had only a half-dozen grammatical/punctuation errors in about 400 pages. I blame the editor for those errors, not the author.

~bint show less

Good story, though I must say that Hetty really annoyed me through about the first half of the book. In the previous book, Wyoming Bride, Hetty is one of three sisters who leave the orphanage where they have been living the last several years. Her twin has become a mail order bride in order to save herself and her sisters from the cruel head of the orphanage. But Hetty is quite immature, and very much of a flirt, whose antics get them kicked out of the wagon train they are part of. When they are alone on the prairie, her sister's husband dies and they are attacked by Indians. Josie is captured, Hetty is injured, and Hannah takes off to find help. Hetty is found by another traveler and taken in and nursed back to health.

The other woman show more is a mail order bride headed to Montana with her two children. But Hetty is disturbed by this woman's treatment of the two kids, and when she tries to defend them the woman ends up dead. Hetty doesn't want the kids to face the same life she had in the orphanage, so she decides to pretend to be the bride. This will be a real challenge because the groom is expecting someone older and more experienced.

Karl sent for a wife because he feels that's the only way he can get one. He's not particularly good looking, but he's intelligent and is in charge of a logging operation. When Hetty first arrives he is stunned by her beauty, but soon becomes suspicious of her. She looks too young to have two kids, especially two that look older than their stated ages. He's willing to give her a chance until it becomes obvious that she's been deceiving him about more than just her age.

Hetty really disgusted me at the beginning because she was so immature and shallow. Her first reaction to Karl was disappointment because his looks didn't measure up to those of his friend. Plus she was more taken with the friend than with Karl. I give her credit for knowing that it was wrong of her, but it didn't seem to stop her. She also has a tendency to not think about the consequences of her actions. I did like her determination to take care of Grace and Griffin. She starts out treating Karl pretty badly, but as the book went on she did begin to mature and see the good man under the plain exterior. It took her longer than I liked for her to see that the handsome exterior of the friend covered a slimy interior. Her relationship with Karl was a slow developing one that took a big hit when she had to confess her deception. It was a slow process for her to earn back his trust, but one she was determined to do. I liked seeing her gain more confidence in her abilities, which enabled her to be more the kind of wife Karl needed. The chemistry between them gave them one area where their compatibility was undeniable.

I really liked Karl. He did not have an easy time of it. His older brother was in charge of the business and had sent Karl to Montana to start up the mill. However, he has never respected Karl's abilities or intelligence and sent his friend Dennis as second in command. Karl, however, has a doctorate from Harvard and is an excellent botanist. He also has very different leadership skills than Dennis. Karl is a firm believer in respecting his workers' and their ability to do their jobs, where Dennis is far more of a bully. Karl also has spent a lot of time feeling second best because of his ordinary looks as compared to Dennis's. This feeling is only made worse by Hetty's arrival. He is stunned by her beauty, but can see her disappointment. I loved the way that he's willing to give her time to adjust and does his best to show her how he feels. I also liked his determination to be a good father to the two kids, even though Griffin made it a real challenge. I really enjoyed seeing him stand up for himself and his beliefs against Dennis and how it quickly became obvious that he was doing far better than anyone, including himself, expected. I felt bad for him with the way Hetty treated him, and completely understood how he felt when the truth came out. He had fallen in love with Hetty, and now had to decide if that love could survive the lies.

I disliked Dennis from the very beginning. I hated his attitude toward Karl. His attentions to Hetty showed him to be the snake that he was, and his treatment of Griffin showed a cruel streak. His actions got worse as the book went on and I kept waiting for people to see him for what he was. The kids saw him far more clearly than the adults did.

I enjoyed the two kids, Grace and Griffin. Their life had not been easy to this point, and neither was confident that it would get truly better and stay that way. Hetty's care of them made them start to believe a little bit. Grace was quite mature for her years and I thought she had been very clever in her attempts to save herself and Griffin from their previous life. She wanted to believe in the possibilities. I also enjoyed her clear eyed viewpoints as she and Hetty helped each other. Griffin was a harder case. He protected himself by being a brat. I enjoyed seeing him gain respect for both Hetty and Karl. He also had a cynical outlook for a kid, but it helped him see Dennis for what he was. I loved seeing him go into protector mode during the bear hunt. show less

Ms. Johnson continues her Mail-Order Brides series with Hetty's story, Hannah's sister, the one that I was on a war path with in Hannah's story. Holy Crap! She might have driven me to murder were I her sister! If there was trouble to be had, she was in it to her eyeballs!

She drove me crazy in the beginning of this story but then I slowly warmed up to her, as her character grew, I liked her more and more.


As I mentioned before in my earlier reviews of this series, Ms. Johnson is good when it comes to characterization. Hetty is the proof of that. She created a whiny, shallow and bratty girl and then turned her into a compelling, affectionate and determined woman I couldn't help but care for.


As for Karl, he was a perfect Beta Hero. As show more smart, patient and kind man who is plain looking, he thought he hit a jackpot with his beautiful mail-order bride. Hetty on the other hand wasn't of a similar opinion when it came to her opinion of her groom.


I've read all the books in this series and I've loved them all equally. I'm chomping at the bit to read Josie's story in 'Blackthorne's Bride'!


If you like western romance then this author and her books, this series included, should be on your list.


Melanie for b2b
Complimentary copy provided by the publisher show less

ERMERGERD. Joan Johnston does it again. *le sigh* I absolutely loved books 1 & 2 of the Mail-Order Brides series and book #3 is no different. We first met Hetty in book #1, a brief introduction as one of Miranda's little sisters. And then again in book #2 when she was traveling with her little sister, her twin sister Hannah and Hanna's sick husband Mr. McMurty.

Keeping secrets and lies is something Karl Norwood does not approve of, but that's exactly what Hetty Wentworth does to help two children on their mission to a better life. And Hetty just can't bring it to herself to leave these children behind. So she takes on the lie that she is a woman who she is not and has these children whom she just met and hardly knows. Not only is Karl show more expecting a woman with children, but a woman with experience as a wife: in the bed. And Hetty is far from an experienced woman.

When Karl first meets Hetty he already notices she's a lot younger than she pretends to be and that these children can't possibly be hers. As they look much different from her. They must have different fathers! Despite the fact that Hetty didn't want to do this in the first place, she goes on about it, to give herself and these children a better life. All the while carrying guilt with her about her previous "loves" death. And I put love in quotations because when you first get a real glance at Hetty's personality, she's flirty and beautiful and loves the vying attention of men. Even if that meant she had to put them at each other so that the one she wants will pop the question and that eventually that led to the death of a man she loved. I liked Hetty's character. She's not a push over, a bit stubborn and she's caring to a boot, definitely a Wentworth breed.

Throughout the book Hetty is having a hard time keeping these secrets and she's having a harder time falling in love with Karl. She knows she doesn't deserve him but as time passes she slowly starts seeing things with a clearer eyes and falls for Karl. Does she tell him? Of course not, not like he would believe her, especially since their marriage started out with a pack of lies. Karl, Karl, Karl. *swoon* bookish nerdy and slowly learning to become a leader and an alpha, yes, I said it, ALPHA male. He knows what he wants but he's too scared to give his heart what it wants, and what it wants is Hetty. And not just her beautiful body, but her heart as well. Will Hetty and Karl free themselves of the lies that surrounds them and become a family or will the lies tear them apart? Well, you're just gonna have to read and find out!

LOVED this book, like all of JJohnstons' books. If you love yourself a good historical western romance, then you definitely need to pick up this book! BUT, before you do that pick up books 1 & 2 :) show less

This was my first Joan Johnston book and I really enjoyed it. It had the right amount of romance, suspense and action. It was a nice flowing, easy read book with a great plot. I am going to have to pick up the other Bitter Creek Novels now and read them. If you are looking for a good historical romance I recommend reading this one!

This has a different feel from the first two books. There's less connection between the characters. I spent an inordinate amount of time hoping Dennis would be killed by a log or eaten by a bear. That's something, at least.

I mostly enjoyed this book but I felt it really ended with a whimper not a good climatic bang. The bizarre bad guy sort of got his comeuppance but not at the hands of either of the main characters so any build up just sort of fizzled out. Also the main story was interrupted by a pretty uninteresting romance between a 14 year old girl and her 16 year old boyfriend. Ultimately just so so.