Valentine's Rose by E.E. Burke

This wonderful and well-written start to THE BRIDE TRAIN series by E.E. Burke brings East to West when Irish immigrant, Rose Muldoon leaves the tenements of New York to find a new life out West as a mail order bride in a volatile town with an excess of men seeking female companionship.

When Rose boards her train headed West, she has no idea what to expect when she arrives in Cherokee County, Kansas. Hoping for something better and a life with a husband she can come to love and form a family with, Rose and the other women are angered when they find instead of being able to choose husbands, a lottery would take place and men who owned land claims would be chosen for them.

When exiled  Englishman Constantine Valentine sets his eyes on the tall, red-headed beauty, he has to remember what his ultimate goal is... Make his fortune and return to the family fold a rich man, showing his father he isn't a useless scoundrel. When Val finds out he must wed in order to claim property he won in a card game, wedding Rose is the only option to achieving his goal, but becoming intimately involved with Rose is out of the question.

Rose knows that Val feels the attraction too, but his distance is doing more harm than good to this honorable and hard working woman. Val can only stay aloof for so long, for when danger comes knocking on the door, he needs to decide if the woman he married is more important than his quest for wealth.

Valentine's Rose by E.E. Burke has everything I want to read in a Western romance, adventure, intrigue and anticipation. I love how two people from two different walks of life are able to put aside their pasts and become a united pair. E.E. Burke couldn't have told this tale any better. Valentine's Rose is a winner.

~KIMBERLY~