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The Texas Brands #7
The Outlaw Bride
TIME AFTER TIME…
Esmeralda Montoya would never understand the strange magic that had saved her from certain death in the Old West. All she knew was that she had been swept through time, into a world unlike any she had ever imagined—and into the arms of a man unlike any she had ever known….
But she could not surrender to the wildfire passion that raced through her whenever this man from the future touched her. For Elliot Brand was her sworn enemy, and she must keep all the secrets of her heart from him—even the knowledge that she was carrying his child….
This family was born, bred—and bound to be wed—in Texas!
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 1999
471 people are currently reading
451 people want to read
About the author
Maggie Shayne
257 books2,573 followersI live in the teeny, tiny town of Taylor, NY, (Alliteration Alert!) though my mailing address is Cincinnatus, my telephone exchange is Truxton and I pay taxes and vote in Cuyler. All of these are at least in the same rural county in the southern hills of New York State; Cortland County. There are more cattle than people here. The nearest “big” cities are Syracuse and Binghamton and they are an hour away, in different directions, and not really all that big by most standards, though they both seem humongous to me. I look out my window to see rolling, green, thickly forested hills, wildflower laden meadows and wide open blue, blue skies. My road is barely paved. The nearest neighboring place is a 700 acre dairy farm.
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
March 7, 2022
Didn’t like this. Hated the heroine. Also it was weird that this time travel romance was tacked onto the end of this perfectly normal series.
January 14, 2025
This is the 7th book in the series and we get Elliot's story. I found this one to be a little more far fetched than the others. Taylor has discovered a rare crystal pendant and would like to take it to the university to put it under lock and key for study. Since she is sick, Elliot offers to take it. On the way, he gets curious and decides to look at it. He reads the inscription on it and gets himself into a car accident. When he gets out and looks around, everything is slightly different and his truck has suddenly disappeared. Meanwhile, in 1881, Esmeralda has returned to her father's ranch just after her father was shot by outlaws and killed. The banker, Allen Brand decides to foreclose on his loan and confiscate the ranch instead of letting Esmeralda try to pay it off. When she leaves town, she runs into his younger brother who tried to rape her. She kills him in self defense and is sentenced to hang but the local sheriff who happens to be his older brother. Elliot walks into Quinn - a vastly different Quinn that looks like the set for an old western movie and happens upon Esmeralda's hanging. Elliot could be the twin of the murdered man and in the confusion his appearance causes, he helps Esmeralda escape. During the escape, Elliot discovers that Esmeralda is wearing the same pendant that Taylor had found. When she reads the description, they end up transported back to the present. Esmeralda claims the Brand ranch really belongs to her and she devised a plan to get it back. She doesn't count falling in love with Elliot. Can they work things out and both admit there feelings before Esmeralda decides to leave town for good? Will the Brands ever accept her?
January 22, 2020
Esmerelda’s character sucks. I just don’t like her. I don’t like her personality. I don’t like her attitude. I don’t like her going off every five seconds. It is annoying and then when she decides she is going to trap Elliot by get pregnant I was done. I just have nothing for the entire character. She hardly has redeeming qualities and I find that annoying. I enjoy when she’s learning and when she is spending time with Bubba but I’m about 40% through and just want to shake her.
Elliot is a nice guy who goes out of his way in so many different ways for his family and obviously for a women he doesn’t even know. He just keeps treating Esmeralda with so much respect and she keeps lashing out and attacking him around every corner.
Then she starts getting angry because she likes him but thinks he’s doing the same thing she is. Ummm NO! Then he’s basically in love with her and if I missed something within the book it was after like 2 days. I like this author and most of the books in this series are good and make you love both the characters but Esmeralda is so non redeeming. Then she finally decides what she is doing and thinking is wrong. I didn’t like Esmeralda until she ran away honestly. That’s when her plus side personality joined the story. She was so sad about Elliot and his family not accepting her, then he gets hurt coming to find her. She does her saving and then fast forward to the end. It wasn’t terrible just disappointing.
Elliot is a nice guy who goes out of his way in so many different ways for his family and obviously for a women he doesn’t even know. He just keeps treating Esmeralda with so much respect and she keeps lashing out and attacking him around every corner.
Then she starts getting angry because she likes him but thinks he’s doing the same thing she is. Ummm NO! Then he’s basically in love with her and if I missed something within the book it was after like 2 days. I like this author and most of the books in this series are good and make you love both the characters but Esmeralda is so non redeeming. Then she finally decides what she is doing and thinking is wrong. I didn’t like Esmeralda until she ran away honestly. That’s when her plus side personality joined the story. She was so sad about Elliot and his family not accepting her, then he gets hurt coming to find her. She does her saving and then fast forward to the end. It wasn’t terrible just disappointing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 24, 2022
My initial reaction at the beginning of the book was, "Aarrg! Time travel!". I should have expected it because the series has just about everything else. After getting over my distaste about time travel, I noticed that Ms. Shayne had a different take on it. Although the getting used to objects and devices that weren't around in 1881 was touched on, it didn't make the major perspective. Instead, she emphasizes the difficulties of someone who feels something happened just yesterday, like the death of her father, actually has happened nearly 150 years ago to everyone around her in her current time. No one can sympathize or even understand what this is like for her. To them it is ancient history. I did like that take on things. Unfortunately, Esmeralda is an angry young woman, and Elliot is such an easy-going young man that I really couldn't get into the relationship aspect of the book.
January 3, 2019
Nice Read!
I love how close the Brand Family is in Maggie Shayne's series! This one, Texas Brands, I love how each sibling finds the love of their life. This time it is Elliott and he finds Esmeralda in the strangest way! You have to read it to find out! You won't be disappointed! This is a book that I will definitely recommend to others!
I love how close the Brand Family is in Maggie Shayne's series! This one, Texas Brands, I love how each sibling finds the love of their life. This time it is Elliott and he finds Esmeralda in the strangest way! You have to read it to find out! You won't be disappointed! This is a book that I will definitely recommend to others!
February 24, 2023
Not believable!
I’ve enjoyed this series up until now! Who would have thought to put sci-fi in a romance novel. I kept waiting for Elliot to wake up from a dream after hitting his head and the book go in that direction. Too far off base to even enjoy, and how could she know that she was pregnant after only a couple days. Wow! I think I’m through with this series.
I’ve enjoyed this series up until now! Who would have thought to put sci-fi in a romance novel. I kept waiting for Elliot to wake up from a dream after hitting his head and the book go in that direction. Too far off base to even enjoy, and how could she know that she was pregnant after only a couple days. Wow! I think I’m through with this series.
May 10, 2021
This novel was just too far-fetched for me. I don't usually like time travel novels, and this one just didn't work for me. I thought Eliot deserved a much better story than this one. I'm giving it a two-star review because Ms. Shayne's writing is good.
December 19, 2022
The Outlaw Bride (The Texas Brands Book 7)
I think this was my favorite storyline. The inclusion of the paranormal was as, strange??, as some of the other aspects of this series. They are enjoyable and I keep going right to the next one but they are definitely different.
I think this was my favorite storyline. The inclusion of the paranormal was as, strange??, as some of the other aspects of this series. They are enjoyable and I keep going right to the next one but they are definitely different.
September 25, 2023
Time travel!
Modern folks accept concept.
Would have been imteresting to have included how family went fron villianous behavior to upstanding citizens.
Ending should have had the pendant returned to heroine for full-circle conclusion.
Modern folks accept concept.
Would have been imteresting to have included how family went fron villianous behavior to upstanding citizens.
Ending should have had the pendant returned to heroine for full-circle conclusion.
August 24, 2024
The Texas Brands Book 7 - The Outlaw Bride
Jaw-dropping, mystical love story that still has me wondering, never doubting, about truly destined love...Fated Love!! Great writing Maggie Shayne😍
Jaw-dropping, mystical love story that still has me wondering, never doubting, about truly destined love...Fated Love!! Great writing Maggie Shayne😍
February 24, 2017
Not my favorite Brand story.
July 15, 2019
Loved this book! Love the series!!
January 4, 2020
3 1/2☆☆☆
June 29, 2020
So long ago I read this. Once I do a reread I will comment
October 20, 2023
Loved it
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HR books are just great. Always keeps me on the edge of my seat.
Can't wait to read book 8
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HR books are just great. Always keeps me on the edge of my seat.
Can't wait to read book 8
February 21, 2024
Another great book
What a wonderful story. I love this authors books. They are all great and well worth the time to read.
What a wonderful story. I love this authors books. They are all great and well worth the time to read.
May 30, 2024
Disappointed. Time Travel???? 150 years
Seriously though, someone being hung for murder and a person from 150 years in the future comes and saves her!!! Please. Very disappointed.
Seriously though, someone being hung for murder and a person from 150 years in the future comes and saves her!!! Please. Very disappointed.
September 20, 2024
Wonderful reading
This episode is a little fantastic but just as entertaining as the other ones! The family is getting bigger and bigger!
This episode is a little fantastic but just as entertaining as the other ones! The family is getting bigger and bigger!
July 15, 2025
Heck of a read!
Maggie Shayne does not disappoint! Onto book number 8! I think I'm a fan for life! I haven't had this much fun reading a series in years!
Maggie Shayne does not disappoint! Onto book number 8! I think I'm a fan for life! I haven't had this much fun reading a series in years!
November 20, 2017
I think I loved Elliot & Esmeralda's story best! The magic and the intrigue...and more of this amazing family! I love the addition of just a bit of magic to a wonderful love story in this awesome series!
January 26, 2015
I have to say that this has to be one of my favourites of the Texas Brands series. I really felt like the author swept me back in to the old west and Elliots reaction to being there was spot on. I loved the different idea of the crystal/time travel etc and was glad it was put in there.
I loved the way Esmerelda was exploring the modern day, it was really light hearted and fun. Things that we all take for granted were magical for her and I think the author really thought about it well.
Of course as with all of The Brands novels, they inevitably fall in love very quickly. But I loved Esmerelda and her strong character and the love story is beautiful.
I've now read all if the Brands novels and I've really enjoyed them all, but this has to be my favourite :) It's just so different and I thoroughly recommend it.
I loved the way Esmerelda was exploring the modern day, it was really light hearted and fun. Things that we all take for granted were magical for her and I think the author really thought about it well.
Of course as with all of The Brands novels, they inevitably fall in love very quickly. But I loved Esmerelda and her strong character and the love story is beautiful.
I've now read all if the Brands novels and I've really enjoyed them all, but this has to be my favourite :) It's just so different and I thoroughly recommend it.
January 25, 2015
Such a magical story, I loved every minute.. Elliot has one job to do, take his sister's artefact to the museum... But he's inquisitive and has to see what's in the box, inside he finds a crystal scull with an inscription... After reading the inscription, there's a flash of light and he crashes onto a tree... When he gets out and looks around things are not quite as they should be... Esmeralda returns home after spending time with her aunt, to find he father has been murdered and his ranch taken by his murderers... Setting out to claim her families ranch, she bumps into the man she thought she loved when they were growing up... Eldon Brand is pure scrum, he tries forcing himself on Esmerelda, defending herself she kills him and is sentenced to death by hanging... Just as she's about to die, a mystery man saves her and their worlds collide!!!
August 8, 2008
Book 7 in the Brand series. I’m not a western romance fan, but since Ms. Shayne is one of my favorite authors, I knew I had to read her Brand series. Overall, they are all quite good! Some are a little bit better than others, in my opinion. If you are a fan of the western romances, you can’t miss this series!
The story of Elliot Brand and his HEA Esmeralda. This is the most interesting of all the Texas Brand stories as this story involves time travel. Elliot saves Esmeralda from certain death in the Old West. They have a daughter Montoya- named after Esmeralda’s father in order to unite the Montoyas and Brands together. They are part owners of The Texas Brand and have built their house there.
The story of Elliot Brand and his HEA Esmeralda. This is the most interesting of all the Texas Brand stories as this story involves time travel. Elliot saves Esmeralda from certain death in the Old West. They have a daughter Montoya- named after Esmeralda’s father in order to unite the Montoyas and Brands together. They are part owners of The Texas Brand and have built their house there.
February 10, 2017
loved the time traveling
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April 23, 2015Better then I thought
At first it was really good then I thought it stared to drag a bit but it picked up around chapter 3 then it really started getting good I could not put it down one page after another was better and better.
But the the ending was the best.
I love this family it is like I have known them all my life A great family with great people and great seairs to a must read but start from book one that is where you meet the whole family.
At first it was really good then I thought it stared to drag a bit but it picked up around chapter 3 then it really started getting good I could not put it down one page after another was better and better.
But the the ending was the best.
I love this family it is like I have known them all my life A great family with great people and great seairs to a must read but start from book one that is where you meet the whole family.
January 19, 2017
I've been powering thru this series and enjoying it so far, it's light & easy reading. But really, time travel?? I kind of draw the line there. Why was that even necessary? And they didn't even go BACK to her time. It was so weird.
Also, this is a huge annoyance for me in every single book: these Brand guys, they're all honorable and respect women and crap but not one of them uses a c ondom??? Every one of these women is getting preggo like immediately. Come. On.
Also, this is a huge annoyance for me in every single book: these Brand guys, they're all honorable and respect women and crap but not one of them uses a c ondom??? Every one of these women is getting preggo like immediately. Come. On.
January 26, 2017
Elliot Brand by far is the most interesting of the brothers in both personality and where his story takes you. The time travel element was fun and exciting. Esmeralda Montoya is a force to be reckoned with in any time period. These two make you want to hear more about this amazing family.
October 10, 2015
I wound up liking this one even though it started really poorly. Honestly, the author wrote the main characters' ancestors so evil, I had a hard time seeing how the story could recover itself from there to end happily.
February 23, 2008
Loved it! I think this is her first time travel book. Very good but still repeative.
December 11, 2013
This is totally different to other books in series. Time traveling was hard to understand when I read blurb but after finish book it totally works. Great adventure and HEA.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews