☆☆
Published
July 31st 2013
Publisher
Choc Lit
Genre
Western Romance
Pages
313
Author’s Page
https://lizharrisauthor.com/
Ellen lost her husband and gained horrible scar in one horrible wagon accident, now she is a mail order bride hoping her future husband will overlook her scars.
I find it interesting that Connor and his daughter are focused on the surface while the rest of their community is most welcoming of Ellen. Ellen is pretty brave to pack up and go to a new place, knowing that she will risk ridicule and pity because of circumstances beyond her control, hoping to find a modicum of happiness in her now lonely life.
The beginning of the book had a good start and I made it past the fifth chapter and then it turned painfully boring and I desperately needed to skip several chapters. I did go back a few chapters to briefly read a key scene to explain why Connor thought Ellen did something that she claims she didn’t do. I was amazed that I had actually managed to get the end of this story and extremely happy is was finally over. A Bargain Struck is one book I am wishing I had thought twice about especially in this age of digital books where I can’t trade it in for something else until I find a book worth keeping.
Book Cover Rating
I have to admit when I first saw the cover I felt like the bottom part, with the broken wheel did not fit but then I got thinking that yes it really did and had to start this part of the review over again. The top portion of the cover that I now question because as I sit here typing and gazing at the picture I becomes much clearer to me that the model is not properly attired for the time period of the story and that lighting was used to try and cover this up, so in all honesty I cannot say this cover matches with story in A Bargain Struck.
Book Blurb Rating
I do think the blurb matches the book however I don’t think that Ellen was so much dishonest as not forth coming because withholding information isn’t necessarily being dishonest unless she was asked directly about what she looked like and there was no indication of such a thing in the story but then we come into the story after the letter writing has taken place so I guess this is one of those things left to the interpretation of the reader.
Book’s Blurb
Does a good deal make a marriage?
Widower Connor Maguire advertises for a wife to raise his young daughter, Bridget, work the homestead and bear him a son.
Ellen O’Sullivan longs for a home, a husband and a family. On paper, she is everything Connor needs in a wife. However, it soon becomes clear that Ellen has not been entirely truthful.
Will Connor be able to overlook Ellen’s dishonesty and keep to his side of the bargain? Or will Bridget’s resentment, the attentions of the beautiful Miss Quinn, and the arrival of an unwelcome visitor, combine to prevent the couple from starting anew.
As their personal feelings blur the boundaries of their deal, they begin to wonder if a bargain struck makes a marriage worth keeping.
Set in Wyoming in 1887, a story of a man and a woman brought together through need, not love …
Laura's Book Binge 