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Jonah's Woman
Come what may, Miss Aurora Crenshaw is westward bound, her sights set on Montana. Once there, she plans to assist in an anthropology study of the Crow Indians for the renowned Smithsonian Institution. And while it’s true that the only Indians this intrepid bluestocking has ever laid eyes upon are those illustrating the pages of popular dime novels, Aurora is not about to let that stop her from making her mark in a man’s world.
Major Jonah Mackenzie, a Civil War hero who also happens to be a half-breed Mohawk Indian, finds himself in the unenviable position of having to escort General Crenshaw’s niece halfway across the continent. Convinced that Aurora is the most dangerous type of woman imaginable – a crusading do-gooder – he tries to keep his distance. Unfortunately, Aurora has a knack for landing into trouble. Indian abductions. Barroom brawls. It’s enough to make Jonah think that beneath Aurora’s spectacles and prissy demeanor there’s one gutsy lady. Not to mention a most beguiling woman.
But as the fires of armed aggression burn out of control on the frontier, Jonah is suddenly torn between his military duty and his desire for a woman hell-bent on saving the warlike Crow Indians. When Jonah is falsely accused of treason – a hanging offense – his Indian blood becomes a dangerous liability. Especially for the woman he loves. If he’s to save Aurora from the raging firestorm, he must act quickly . . . even at the risk of losing her forever.
A sexy western romance set in 1860s Montana, JONAH’S WOMAN is brimming with passion, wonderful historical detail, and all the fury of the untamed frontier.
Major Jonah Mackenzie, a Civil War hero who also happens to be a half-breed Mohawk Indian, finds himself in the unenviable position of having to escort General Crenshaw’s niece halfway across the continent. Convinced that Aurora is the most dangerous type of woman imaginable – a crusading do-gooder – he tries to keep his distance. Unfortunately, Aurora has a knack for landing into trouble. Indian abductions. Barroom brawls. It’s enough to make Jonah think that beneath Aurora’s spectacles and prissy demeanor there’s one gutsy lady. Not to mention a most beguiling woman.
But as the fires of armed aggression burn out of control on the frontier, Jonah is suddenly torn between his military duty and his desire for a woman hell-bent on saving the warlike Crow Indians. When Jonah is falsely accused of treason – a hanging offense – his Indian blood becomes a dangerous liability. Especially for the woman he loves. If he’s to save Aurora from the raging firestorm, he must act quickly . . . even at the risk of losing her forever.
A sexy western romance set in 1860s Montana, JONAH’S WOMAN is brimming with passion, wonderful historical detail, and all the fury of the untamed frontier.
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 2, 2013
82 people are currently reading
256 people want to read
About the author
Kate Wingo
7 books23 followersKate Wingo is the pseudonym of a two-time Golden Heart finalist. Born in Washington DC, she graduated from George Mason University with a degree in art history. Although Kate began her writing career in the romance genre, she switched gears several years ago, making the leap to thrillers. Having recently completed an esoteric thriller series for Penguin UK and previously Berkley Publishing, she has now happily returned to her romance roots (and her unabashed love of history). Kate lives and writes from her home in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 28, 2015
This is a sexy western historical romance involving a half Mohawk/half Scottish cavalry officer who guides a bluestocking anthropologist to Montana just after the Civil War. Jonah Mackenzie is the officer, and he is proud, knowledgeable and impatient. Aurora Crenshaw is the educated termagant who plagues his sensibilities. The two start out bickering, but slowly come to admiring each other's traits. Admiration turns to lust and then love for both. The challenge to their happily ever after comes from Jonah's identity crisis. He questions whether he is a Mohawk warrior or a Union soldier, or if he can be both, especially as he is to lead negotiations with the Crow Nation as they are displaced from their tribal lands and as skirmishes heat up with the Sioux. He worries about Aurora and what she would face as the wife to a Mohawk in a prejudiced world or in a fort in Montana as soldiers and Indians prepare to go to war.
I found Aurora to be a mix of many things: intelligent, lusty, acquiescent, bold, practical, insightful, and naive. She was a bit all over the place, yet I believed. She started out a spinster, set in her academic ways with only uncles as guardians. She found adventure and love, and they transformed her. Loving Aurora gave Jonah the confidence to face his issues with his heritage and become the man his Mohawk grandfather believed him to be. Along the way, the two lovers are challenged by convention, sinister characters, and true and dangerous tension between Native American tribes and western expansionist policies. It is rare to read a steamy romance that embraces the larger political and racial realities of the post-Civil War American West.
Their romance is wrapped around the broad brush of historical events taking place in Montana in the 1860s, specifically Red Cloud's War. A fair portion of the book takes place on the trail from Independence, Missouri and in a Crow village and a fort in Montana. These make for interesting settings for a western historical. I found the worry about what was "proper" to be surprisingly mild. Sometimes I wonder if Victorian sensibilities really were more relaxed in the West, so I chose to accept Kate Wingo's complacent views. Though the sepia tintype cover would hint at a "clean" romance, this book is decidedly spicy.
I found Aurora to be a mix of many things: intelligent, lusty, acquiescent, bold, practical, insightful, and naive. She was a bit all over the place, yet I believed. She started out a spinster, set in her academic ways with only uncles as guardians. She found adventure and love, and they transformed her. Loving Aurora gave Jonah the confidence to face his issues with his heritage and become the man his Mohawk grandfather believed him to be. Along the way, the two lovers are challenged by convention, sinister characters, and true and dangerous tension between Native American tribes and western expansionist policies. It is rare to read a steamy romance that embraces the larger political and racial realities of the post-Civil War American West.
Their romance is wrapped around the broad brush of historical events taking place in Montana in the 1860s, specifically Red Cloud's War. A fair portion of the book takes place on the trail from Independence, Missouri and in a Crow village and a fort in Montana. These make for interesting settings for a western historical. I found the worry about what was "proper" to be surprisingly mild. Sometimes I wonder if Victorian sensibilities really were more relaxed in the West, so I chose to accept Kate Wingo's complacent views. Though the sepia tintype cover would hint at a "clean" romance, this book is decidedly spicy.
September 29, 2013
While not up there with Carol O'Connell's Native American romances (in this reader's humble opinion), this is still a fairly enjoyable historical western romance featuring Jonah, a half Mohawk/half Scottish soldier, and Aurora, an orphaned, eccentric, white scholar. I wish there'd been a bit more character development, not to mention some pretense at real feelings between the two of them before they jumped in bed together (why are so many writers incapable of writing actual romance?)...but it wasn't terribly done.
September 25, 2023
I’m not sure what to say about this book, but it was unexpected. Lol
I don’t remember how it got on my kindle, but the picture on the cover was an old-time photo of a simple young lady. Then…BAM! The same book has a new provocative book cover with a more modern photo of a shirtless man. It looked more like a Harlequin Romance. If the cover photo was supposed to be Johna, his tattoos were missing. LOL.
Regardless, I decided to read it, but I kept the old cover on my Goodreads list. Hahaha
After reading, I’m pleased to say that the shirtless man fits better with the sexy content. 🤣🤷🏼♀️
I don’t remember how it got on my kindle, but the picture on the cover was an old-time photo of a simple young lady. Then…BAM! The same book has a new provocative book cover with a more modern photo of a shirtless man. It looked more like a Harlequin Romance. If the cover photo was supposed to be Johna, his tattoos were missing. LOL.
Regardless, I decided to read it, but I kept the old cover on my Goodreads list. Hahaha
After reading, I’m pleased to say that the shirtless man fits better with the sexy content. 🤣🤷🏼♀️
December 27, 2018
Exciting historical novel
Raw western territory, with bigatory military officers and common people who understand that Indians are just people. This is a wonderful love story while at the same time tells our dad history of mistreatment of Indians during the civilization of the west.
Raw western territory, with bigatory military officers and common people who understand that Indians are just people. This is a wonderful love story while at the same time tells our dad history of mistreatment of Indians during the civilization of the west.
September 20, 2024
I liked the characters and the story line. But sex much to explicit. A protected 28 year old white women is protected by a half breed indian on a cross country trip to join her uncle. Characters are memorable. The story goes into detail in what life would be like for a mixed marriage during the Indian wars.
August 7, 2020
Jonah’s Woman
Enjoyed this story very much. The author made me feel like I was there in that place with them. Did not need the descriptive sex, it did nothing for the great love story.
Enjoyed this story very much. The author made me feel like I was there in that place with them. Did not need the descriptive sex, it did nothing for the great love story.
September 17, 2013
This book starts out strong and not matter if it ends with a bang or a whimper, after the first chapter this is already at least a 3 stars review for me.
In this historical Western romance about a bookish 'spinster' with glasses who was raised by two uncles after she was orphaned as a child who is traveling West to meet her professor uncle who is in Montana, but at the last stop of the train from Boston she is met by her guide a half Indian, half Scottish Major Jonah Mackenzie and hilarity ensues. Miss Aurora Crenshaw is very educated for a woman of her time, she was lucky to be so well cared for by her two uncles, but she is ready for some adventure and she finds it the minute after hopping off the train. I laughed hard with the episode that happens afterwards because she thinks that she is so smart but is not at all street smart.
Poor Major Jonah Mackenzie, he has to get her safely to Montana.
Jonah and Aurora are transformed in this voyage because of love and trust, but also a new type of relationship of lovers and life partners that neither has any experience with until they meet each other. There are misunderstandings but that is so true with first love when we are all so scare to lose that strong intense feelings when we finally feel it for the first time. Aurora's uncle is writing important historical work on the Crow Indians for the renowned Smithsonian Institution so that in his small way, he can change the brutal treatment of his new Native friends, but prejudice and fear are strong in the West. These bigoted people will be throwing road blocks to the cute new couple, but HEA guaranteed.
266 pages and kindle freebie
2 stars
In this historical Western romance about a bookish 'spinster' with glasses who was raised by two uncles after she was orphaned as a child who is traveling West to meet her professor uncle who is in Montana, but at the last stop of the train from Boston she is met by her guide a half Indian, half Scottish Major Jonah Mackenzie and hilarity ensues. Miss Aurora Crenshaw is very educated for a woman of her time, she was lucky to be so well cared for by her two uncles, but she is ready for some adventure and she finds it the minute after hopping off the train. I laughed hard with the episode that happens afterwards because she thinks that she is so smart but is not at all street smart.
Poor Major Jonah Mackenzie, he has to get her safely to Montana.
Jonah and Aurora are transformed in this voyage because of love and trust, but also a new type of relationship of lovers and life partners that neither has any experience with until they meet each other. There are misunderstandings but that is so true with first love when we are all so scare to lose that strong intense feelings when we finally feel it for the first time. Aurora's uncle is writing important historical work on the Crow Indians for the renowned Smithsonian Institution so that in his small way, he can change the brutal treatment of his new Native friends, but prejudice and fear are strong in the West. These bigoted people will be throwing road blocks to the cute new couple, but HEA guaranteed.
266 pages and kindle freebie
2 stars
October 8, 2015
Kate Wingo introduces us to a pair of strong willed, independent thinking characters who are still confined with social constraints of this period in time. Set in Montana in 1860s, we are witnessed to a growing relationship between spinster, Aurora Crenshaw, and Civil War hero, Major Johan Mackenzie. Orphaned and raised by two bachelor uncles, Aurora is education woman. She enjoys working along one of her uncles in an anthropology study of Crow Indians. Major Jonah Mackenzie has a unique heritage of Mohawk Indian and Scottish descent. He achieves his success through the army. These dynamic lends the escalating plot line. Both characters fight inner demons which also contribute to the intensity of plot development. Wingo includes descriptive sex scenes that can be offensive to some. But this grows old as the sex scenes are repetitive, which in my opinion detracted from the book. I enjoyed the descriptive scenes detailing what life was like at that period, especially the difference between life amongst the Indians and life in a fort. As in every novel, the protagonists are plagued by villains. These interactions help to build tension that aids in keeping the reader’s interest.
November 12, 2013
Aurora Crenshaw is a twenty seven year old spectacled spinster who's never been kissed, after being orphaned at a very young age she was cared for by her two uncles, General Jack Crenshaw and Leland Thorpe an anthropologist the book starts with her travelling from Boston to Montana to assist her Uncle Leland who's working with the Crow Indians. Her Uncle Jack has sent Major Jonah MacKenzie to escort her the rest of the way from Missouri to Montana, now Jonah is half Mohawk Indian on his mothers side and mistakes Aurora's reaction when seeing him for the first time, whereas Aurora finds herself truely attracted to a man for the first time.
Now we know romance is not going to run smooth for these two and as a result we're taken on a beautiful journey of love and danger.
Wonderful book well worth a read.
Now we know romance is not going to run smooth for these two and as a result we're taken on a beautiful journey of love and danger.
Wonderful book well worth a read.
October 10, 2015
Could not stop reading
Once again a rare thing when a writer can use words as a painter does paint to create a work of art. This was one of the best books I have read this year and I read a lot. Having missed sleep because I could not turn off my kindle and wait till the next day to see what Aurora and Jonah were going to do next. The end was great but too quickly coming for somebody like me that hates the end to a good book. Looking forward to reading more of this new found wonderful talented writer's other books.
Once again a rare thing when a writer can use words as a painter does paint to create a work of art. This was one of the best books I have read this year and I read a lot. Having missed sleep because I could not turn off my kindle and wait till the next day to see what Aurora and Jonah were going to do next. The end was great but too quickly coming for somebody like me that hates the end to a good book. Looking forward to reading more of this new found wonderful talented writer's other books.
January 22, 2016
Pride, Prejudice, & Indians
The ambiguous 3 stars. Not good enough to be 4, but not craptastic enough to be 2. The wording of this book volleyed between being repetitive and being pretentious. It was often un-pc and anti-feminist, when it appears to be trying to promote acceptance/equality of all people. Like I said-- ambiguous. The love story wasn't bad. (Definitely Lizzie/Darcy vibes) And that is, after all, the point. So yeah.
The ambiguous 3 stars. Not good enough to be 4, but not craptastic enough to be 2. The wording of this book volleyed between being repetitive and being pretentious. It was often un-pc and anti-feminist, when it appears to be trying to promote acceptance/equality of all people. Like I said-- ambiguous. The love story wasn't bad. (Definitely Lizzie/Darcy vibes) And that is, after all, the point. So yeah.
October 10, 2015
Well-written historical romance
This was an enjoyable formulaic romance. Between the writing and editing, this book made it easy to become absorbed in the story and kept me there all the way through. It's books like this that make writing seem effortlessly done, which proves the author knows what she's doing.
This was an enjoyable formulaic romance. Between the writing and editing, this book made it easy to become absorbed in the story and kept me there all the way through. It's books like this that make writing seem effortlessly done, which proves the author knows what she's doing.
October 10, 2015
Jonah's Woman
A western romance with a little different twist. It touches upon early U.S. history, military, US western forts, Mohawk nation, Sioux nation, and Crow nation. There is some explicit sex which in my opinion is not essential to the plot. It merely detracts from the story.
A western romance with a little different twist. It touches upon early U.S. history, military, US western forts, Mohawk nation, Sioux nation, and Crow nation. There is some explicit sex which in my opinion is not essential to the plot. It merely detracts from the story.
October 6, 2015
Good book and story. A worthwhile reading experience.
October 12, 2015
Stilted writing and eye-roll-inducing references to sexual organs. The description of the wagon journey to Montana was interesting, though.
October 19, 2015
Excellent!
June 18, 2016
Everyone needs a break from serious reading. This was an amusing bodice ripper.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews