This HaBO is from Jill, who is searching for an American historical romance:
Thanks to you and all the bitches for the many hours of enjoyment you have brought me both with the warm, welcoming site and the HaBOs in particular. I’ve got to be honest, I had a couple potential HaBO candidates, but I’ve managed to solve most of them. This one may be a real stumper because I have zero memory of the main couple.
Okay, I know I read this between 2000 and 2001, but it may have been older. I was in Spain for my Junior Year Abroad and pickings were slim for romances in English. It was set during the Alaskan gold rush and involved mail order brides coming to Alaska. Do I remember the main couple? Nope. She was a feisty woman from “back east” and he was you know, rugged and all that. What I really remember is the secondary romance. I believe the heroine was another mail order bride, but she was older and firmly in spinster territory. When she comes to the tiny town, she butts head with the town doctor, who is a cranky older man with a drinking problem. In my head, he was old, old, like I was picturing Uncle Billy from It’s a Wonderful Life age. That may just be because I was in college when I read it, he may have been forty. 😉 I do believe he may have had some white hair or was balding.
Anyways, it turns out the doctor lost his wife and child in childbirth and that’s why he’s so angry at the world. He and the spinster fall in love and marry. I remember in the end, she’s pregnant and the doctor is a nervous wreck at the idea of losing one or both of them, but of course, they’re fine and they live happier ever after. It was very sweet. That’s really the thing that sticks out in my mind. The other thing I remember is that it was also a very “action-y” romance. I can’t remember the specifics, but people were always in peril with things like cave-ins, illness, etc. It definitely had more of an “old skool” vibe, which makes me think it might have been older even when I read it.
I’m pretty sure it had big yellow (or gold?) font on the cover and the (probably shirtless) hero with a mountain background. I want to say the cover had kind of a Leigh Greenwood feeling, but I’ve looked over his books and nothing sounds right. I feel like “bride” or something with Alaska was in the title. I’ve googled things like “Gold Rush Bride” and “Alaskan Bride” with no luck. It wasn’t great, but I’d love to reread it to see if the secondary couple is as cute as I remember.
Does anyone remember this secondary couple?
Could it be “Yukon Love Song” by Veronica Blake?
http://www.paperbackswap.com/Yukon-Love-Song-Veronica-Blake/book/0821743651/
I’ve read this one as an ebook through my library, and I’m looking for it now! I’m pretty sure it was categorized as Christian Fiction and has a picture of a lady in a dress in front of a western town, if that helps any other hunters!
Hi, this is Jill. I’m so excited it’s HABO day! Thanks for anyone who can help.
Olivia, that cover looks about the right era, but the description doesn’t quite fit.
I want to say the main heroine was from a very proper family, maybe from Boston ? and a lot of the conflict from the hero being a rough around the edges and their expectations being different. But my memories of them are hazy compared to the other couple.
Jessica, I hope you find your book, but I’m 99 percent sure that mine was not a Christian book. I don’t read or seek out of lot of Christian fiction. I can’t remember the love scenes but I’m pretty sure they were there.
It must be a popular trope.
This isn’t it, but that secondary story reminds me of Christy. I may just need to re-read that book and re-watch that series!
You need a Cover Snark for Yukon Love Song. Is that supposed to be fur trim on her dress?
While I absolutely no idea of the solution to the conundrum, may I permitted to voice the opinion that shirtless in Alaska just doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. Of course, I’ve never been there.
Portions of this HABO sound like Maggie Osborne’s I Do, I Do, I Do: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/497641.I_Do_I_Do_I_Do
However, there is no doctor and the proper heiress is from California, not the East Coast.
Debbie Macomber?
No mention of a secondary couple in this description, but it has bride in the title and the hero sounds fairly rugged: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/margaret-pemberton/forget-me-not-bride
I hope this one gets solved!
Could it have been California gold rush or Colorado? This sounds like a Jo Goodman I’ve read (although I don’t remember which one).
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. These all sound good, but nothing seems quite right.
I’m pretty positive it was Alaska, because I don’t usually read Westerns and I picked this up because the Alaska setting intrigued me.
I also think, but I am not positive, that the main hero (not the doctor) either was a miner or owned the gold mine. Not 100% sure on that one.
I felt like it had weird tone shifts going on, where at one point it would be romance sexy times and then something dire and kind of upsetting would happen. I don’t remember the actual incidents vividly, but it had a weird “all over the place” feel to it. There may have been a mine cave in and the doctor’s wife dying may have been described in a detailed flashback. Or there may have even been some back story about someone getting an abortion? I could be making that part up. I remember thinking “what the hell?” several times.
I’m kind of a wussy reader, so saying it was “gritty” may not help much.
Okay additional question. As soon as I read the HaBO something I’d read popped into my head but not enough for me to remember anything else. Do the heroine and the secondary character by chance stay in the same boarding house? And was it a town small enough that basically the only women were prostitutes, who the women treated friendly and not snubbed?
I don’t know, now I’m thinking the hero might have been a partner with some dude in a mine that no one knew the location of, that was a few days hike?? (I’m probably totally mixing books here)
Olivia,
None is things you mention specifically rings a bell, but it’s all very possible. It was definitely a small town and the prostitute thing sounds about right.
I don’t remember if the two heroines lived in the same boarding house, but it’s very possible. No one got married right away. I’m pretty sure they met while traveling or “on the road.” They weren’t sisters or friends before.