Pete Evans has finally completed his last journey as trail boss on the Oregon Trail, leading his newfound friends all the way across the frontier to Oregon City. But his heart grows heavy as he realizes this means the end of his time with Miss Josephine Lewis and the orphaned Chance family. Sense and logic tell him he should collect his belongings and retire, like a man his age should, but something keeps drawing him back to Josephine.
Josephine Lewis has a whole life waiting for her with her niece in Denver City…so why does she find it impossible to cut ties and head where reason dictates she should go? She is certain she’s too old, at age forty, to form any new attachments, especially romantic ones. And how could a single woman of her age possibly be expected to become a mother to four orphans? Her final responsibility before moving on is to find a home for the Chance children.
But love has plans for Josephine and Pete that have nothing to do with reason or logic and that defy age. That is, if they can come to their senses before the Chance children find themselves in grave danger…
USA Today Bestselling author Merry Farmer lives in suburban Philadelphia with her two cats, Justine and Peter. She has been writing since she was ten years old and realized she didn't have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something. It was the best day of her life. Her books have reached the top of Amazon's charts, and have been named finalists for several prestigious awards, including the RONE Award for indie romance.
This is an OK Western romance novella, with a mostly likable couple -- but there was way too much repetition of Pete and Josephine's concerns that they were too old to marry and adopt four children. They both went over that in their heads so many times, and it got really old.
I liked both Pete and Josephine, and liked that they were an older couple -- but they just took too long to get their heads on straight and realize that they weren't too old to marry and adopt children.
The drama with the Chance children at the end seemed a little contrived. How likely is it that the only place that was willing to take in the kids just happened to be a place that sold kids into slavery? And how likely is it that the sheriff would have had no idea that was going on in his town? Saving the kids also seemed a little too easy to believe.
There was one other issue, and this is minor, but it is a pet peeve of mine – the cover of a book should match the description of the characters in the book. Josephine is supposed to be 40, with some gray in her hair and a few facial wrinkles. But the woman on the cover looks to be in her early twenties, with no gray in her hair and no wrinkles at all. This may not be the author’s fault, but it still bugs me.
My rating system is below. 1 star -- Hated it, or did not finish. I usually only give this rating if some of the content is truly objectionable to me, like if one of the main characters does something really awful, and gets away with it. 2 stars -- Didn't like it. This rating usually means that I thought the writing wasn't very good, the editing was terrible, I didn't like the characters, or it had other major flaws. 3 stars -- I liked it, but had some minor issues with it. This rating means that there were minor editing issues, the story needed more character development, it was just too unrealistic, or had some other fairly minor issue. The majority of books I read get this rating – I do not consider it a bad rating. 4 stars -- I liked it a lot. This is a high rating for me, and I rarely give a higher one. 5 stars -- I loved it, and will probably read it again. Very few books are good enough to get this rating from me. The ones that do are usually classics.
Trail of Chances: Trail's End (Hot on the Trail Book 9)
The love story of Pete and Josephine. Pete has done his last wagon train and now he want to move on. Josephine has found home for all the orphans except the four Chance children. They want Pete and Josephine To adopt them. Will Pete and Josephine find love and marry and give the children a home? Great story.
A perfect book and a perfect ending to this series. We've seen Evan and Josephine dance around each other since the begging of this series and it was very exciting reading their HEA. The characters were very well written and the children were adorable, a must read.
The story of Pete and Josephine was as wonderful as I knew it would be! Full of excitement and edge of your seat action. This series has been one great book after another. I loved, and despised, characters throughout. The way Merry Farmer draws me into the townspeople is nothing short of amazing. Can't wait to read more from her.