Danni Roan, $2.99, ISBN 978-1393253464
Historical Romance, 2020
Danni Roan’s Ruth is another story of a mail-order bride coming to Needful, Texas, where apparently there are 3,000,000 men all looking for brides and the author is going to write up a wife for each and every one of these men.
Our heroine is Ruth Warthan, and she’s excited to be here because she’s bored of her life with her overprotective parents in their small house in some dull corner of the world. She wants excitement, adventure… so she’s going to get married.
Oh, honey, tell me again about all the excitement and adventures of married life 30 years down the road.
Anyway, she likes what she sees.
“Ma’am,” Darwin Rivers said blinking at the pert woman staring up into his face. She wasn’t a very big thing, but she had a bit of meat on her bones and looked cheerful and healthy.
“I’m Ruth,” the young woman said tipping her head and making her spectacles flash. “I’m here as a mail-order bride, and if you’re looking, I’ll take you.”
“What’s going on here?” an older woman said bustling out of what must have been the kitchen and drying her hands on a towel. “Who are you?”
“I’m Ruth,” the young woman smiled. “I’m here to be a mail-order bride, and I want this one,” she finished pointing at a befuddled Darwin.
“You don’t even know him?” the older woman said. “Darwin sit down and finish your lunch,” the older woman ordered, nodding with approval as the man flopped back into his chair.
Fortunately, there is no conflict allowed in Needful, so it just happens that the ostler Darwin is need of a wife. Having horses all day long for company can get boring after all, especially when a man has needs and this is a Christian romance, so there is no fooling around with the livestock.
Not to mention, there’s a good reason why she chooses him. He’s hot. The only thing that can be considered an issue is that he may not be highly educated so he doesn’t know many big fancy words, but since this is a Western romance, we considered that kind of thing “wholesome good old-fashioned values” in a man.
Oh my, wait, there is some drama here. Sure, Ruth and Darwin take to married life like horny fish to water (not too horny, as this is, after all, a Christian romance) and she also fits in perfectly with the neighborhood. Thing is, Ruth sort of ran away from home, and her father isn’t too happy about this…
Like the other stories in this series, this one is pretty light on the drama, and the romance takes place too easily and smoothly to demand much emotional investment on the reader’s part.
However, the hero and the heroine are both more well drawn than their previous counterparts. Ruth being an adorable sort that takes charge of her own destiny without being an idiot or an insufferably naïve dingbat, while there is a wholesome old-school Pamela Morsi-esque quality to the hero’s gentle nature, protectiveness, and simple kind of wholesomeness.
Having a rather standard “save the heroine” conflict also helps to break the monotony of things going way too well in this story for everyone, so that’s another plus.
The other significant negatives as far as I’m concerned are that this story is rather predictable—the kind of drama here has been done many times already in similar stories—and the romance just happens so perfectly and smoothly to be interesting.
Even then, the negatives still translate to a cozy and enjoyable, if rather unmemorable read. I’m roasting in my apartment in the middle of a sweltering heat wave, and it’s horribly uncomfortable all around, but this one manages to make me forget about the figurative oven I am stuck in for a while. That’s what I’d consider a job well done on the author’s part!
