Beth Ann Roberts gave her father a deathbed promise to be a good wife to her deceased sister’s husband, Daggart Bartlett. She counted on the sham marriage to help her keep the Roberts family's land. To her horror, Daggart sells the farm to join the Gold Rush. Beth has little choice but to go with him, never expecting how much her life will change.
Nicholas Granville's brother convinces him to help lead a group as they travel the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon. Despite his need to mourn his late wife alone, Nick's heart began healing the moment he saw Beth.
Faced with hardships and death, Nick and Beth struggle to fight an undeniable love.
The problem may be all mine, though, since there are lots of raving reviews on Amazon, but here's a list of the main issues I had with this book:
1) Beth/Lizzy is supposedly married to Daggart. The reasons why she is are silly, since she's basically serving a replacement for her deceased twin sister. If the sisters had been identical, I might have bought the ruse. But the author makes a point to say, in several different places, that they were completely different. I also don't see how the couple could have fooled an entire town for almost two years with their sham marriage. Even if they avoided the town as much as possible, that's exactly where they are at the beginning of the story, and everyone seems to believe they are truly married. No proof that they are married exists, and we only have Beth's word that they are not in fact married.
2) In several places it's stated that Daggart loved his first wife and treated her very well. Thus implying that he abuses his new wife because she's not a true replacement for the one he lost. I'm sorry, but that's just wrong. I could maybe accept mental illness or even a traumatic disorder as an explanation, but I don't think that's the case. Daggart is a brute and to try to justify his behavior to make it more acceptable just passes on a wrong message. In my opinion, even romance books can serve an educational purpose - and this one clearly doesn't. Healthy adults need to be responsible for their actions and not find excuses to be rude or abusive based on past experiences.
3) No matter the true status of their marriage, Beth and Daggart present themselves to the world as married. That shortly after Nick meets Beth he's apparently thinking of killing her husband to get her is shockingly wrong, even taking into account the time period in which the story unfolds.
4) Again, for all purposes Beth and Daggart are married, so Beth and Nick getting involved basically amounts to adultery. I would have much preferred to see the marriage situation resolved one way or another before having Nick in the picture.
5) Taking into account Daggart's abuse, I also found shocking that Beth tries to steer him to court a single young girl traveling on the same trail. Even without the adultery issues (how on earth would they explain that their marriage wasn't real to people they presented themselves to as a couple at the beginning of the journey?), how could she willing try to subject that girl to the same abuse she's suffering now?
I can't bring myself to recommend this book, and while I'm a bit curious about the next ones in the series, I'm also afraid it will be more of the same.
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