Longing for Home: A Proper Romance
Sarah M. Eden
Shadow Mountain
August 6th 2013
Adult | Historical | Romance
Twenty-six-year-old Katie Macauley has placed all her hope in Hope Springs, a small town in the 1870 Wyoming Territory. But if she wants to return home to Ireland to make amends with her estranged family, she'll need to convince the influential Joseph Archer to hold true to his word and keep her on his payroll as his housekeeper despite her Irish roots. The town is caught in an ongoing feud between the Irish and the "Reds" the frontiersmen who would rather see all the Irish run out of town and the Irish immigrants who are fighting to make a home for themselves in the New World. When Joseph agrees to keep Katie on as his housekeeper, the feud erupts anew, and Katie becomes the reluctant figurehead for the Irish townsfolk. As the violence escalates throughout the town, Katie must choose between the two men who have been vying for her love though only one might be able to restore hope to her heart.
I picked this book up
simply because it published by Shadow Mountain under the A Proper
Romance umbrella. Since Edenbrooke and Blackmoore were good I decided it
was worth a try.
Sarah Eden really did her research
for this story. It all felt so real I was sure the characters weren't
fictional. Surely these exact people suffered some time ago. There is so
much detail and background. The entire Irish community and there
troubles with the non-Irish locals was at times a bit scary.
Probably
one of my biggest problems with the book was that the author did such a
spectacular job making cases for both romantic men that I was evenly
torn. If only Katie could be duplicated so that they both could be
happy. I had a hard time getting to like both but once I did it was hard
to know who might be best. I also didn't like that even in the end her
choice didn't feel quite solid. Almost as if in the sequel something
will happen to sway her to the other man. Maybe it will be a terrible
misfortune to the current lucky guy or maybe he will just get lame in
future. All this build up about who she will choose but there wasn't a
marriage or even a date. Just more of a okay now we can start courting
each other. I guess I wasn't expecting that. One way or the other I am
sure the next book will prove very hard to read. The war is about to get
ugly.
But it was a great read. I was hooked and just
wanted to know what would happen next. Didn't take me much time to get
through the long book but I am a bit hesitant to read further. I just
don't want to see the characters get hurt all over prejudice.
