Review: His Accidental Bride by Carolyn Twede Frank
“Dorothy glanced at the cards the man in overalls held as she placed his drink on the poker table.”
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The Basics
Title: His Accidental Bride
Author: Carolyn Twede Frank
Published: January 4, 2021
Note: I received an e-ARC from NetGalley and Covenant Communications in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher: Covenant Communications
Pages: 264
Format: E-book
Genres: Fiction — Historical fiction, Western, Romance, Historical romance, Western romance, Clean romance
Book Synopsis
Forced into a life of crime by her older brother, Dorothy Bednar is eager to escape his clutches and make a new, more honest life for herself. So, when an opportunity presents itself for her getaway, she seizes it and sneaks onto a train leaving town. She has no idea where the train is headed, nor does she know what she will do when the train reaches its destination. That is, until she meets a fellow passenger, Wilhelmina Cooper, who is headed to Colorado as a mail-order bride. Wilhelmina is having second thoughts about her upcoming nuptials, so when Dorothy tells her about her current situation, Wilhelmina comes up with a plan – Dorothy can have her train and stagecoach tickets to Colorado so that she can start afresh far away from her brother. In exchange, Wilhelmina asks Dorothy to hand deliver a letter to her would-be husband explaining to him that she has cold feet and is calling off the wedding. Dorothy agrees to the plan, but the plan hits a snag almost immediately upon her arrival in the small Colorado town of Craig. Everyone assumes that she is Wilhelmina, Ronald Smith’s mail-order bride, and she has every intention of correcting their misassumption until she meets Ronald himself and finds herself instantly drawn to him. He is unlike any man she has met before: kind, considerate, and endearingly awkward. It, however, is only a matter of time until the truth comes out, and then, will Ronald still want her as his bride?
My Review & Overall Thoughts
TLDR: A quick, easy-to-read book set in the Old West with just enough romance, historical detail, and suspense to keep you turning the pages.
Before I picked up His Accidental Bride, I was in a bit of a reading slump. After weeks of begrudging reading, I had finished a lengthy and entirely disappointing book, and I was not overly eager to start another one. The synopsis of His Accidental Bride, however, sounded intriguing, so I decided to give it a go. And boy, am I glad I did. This book was precisely what I needed to snap myself out of my reading funk. It was an escapist read replete with romance and just enough uncertainty to keep me turning the pages. It was also a very quick and easy read (I finished it within a couple of days).
One of the things that makes this book so readable is that the plot is fairly simple and always moving forward. The story never becomes mired in tedious details, nor does it ever become overwhelmingly intricate. It is a straightforward, entertaining read.
The romance between Dorothy and Ronald is another major contributor to the book’s enjoyability. Ronald is not the typical suave, well-spoken romantic lead – he’s awkward and endearingly quirky. Similarly, Dorothy is not a perfect heroine; she has a past and her fair share of secrets. This against-the-grain nature of theirs is what makes their romance so sweet. The manner by which they meet, namely Dorothy posing as Ronald’s mail-order bride, further endears them as a couple and also adds a touch of suspense, for as the reader, we cannot help but wonder when and how Dorothy’s true identity will be uncovered.
The Old West setting is another highlight of this book. Whenever I opened His Accidental Bride, I was transported from my slightly cramped city apartment to the wide, dusty streets of Craig, Colorado. It was fun to have the Old West brought to life.
The not so good
While the simplistic nature of the plot makes the book very easy and quick to read, it also makes it somewhat predictable at times. I did not necessarily mind this though. Sometimes a little bit of predictability in a book isn’t such a bad thing.
The characters, like the plot, lack complexity, but then again, I think this book is intended to be a quick, entertaining read, not a deep dive into the characters’ psyches.
My only true critique is that I feel that the book ended too soon. It would have been nice to have seen more of the characters’ stories play out. An epilogue could have achieved this.
Overall
Is His Accidental Bride the best book I have ever read? No, but it was exactly what I needed when I read it: an engaging, easy-to-read book.
Are you planning on reading His Accidental Bride? If so, be sure to let me know what you think of it once you finish it.
