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Morrow Creek #6
The Bride Raffle
Famous home-keeping expert Daisy Walsh is overwhelmed by the warm welcome she receives in Morrow Creek, and then she realizes she's the star prize in the town raffle! She can bet the lucky winner's not expecting a pregnant woman who needs a place to stay.
Single father Owen Cooper suspects he's been set up because his daughter is thrilled to have a woman around the house. He could get used to the smell of home baking tempting his taste buds, but the sight of Daisy's stockings is one temptation too far!
Single father Owen Cooper suspects he's been set up because his daughter is thrilled to have a woman around the house. He could get used to the smell of home baking tempting his taste buds, but the sight of Daisy's stockings is one temptation too far!
288 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
9 people are currently reading
190 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Plumley
63 books153 followersBest-selling author Lisa Plumley has delighted readers worldwide with more than three dozen popular novels. Her work has been translated multiple languages and editions, and includes contemporary romances, historical romances, paranormal romances, and a variety of stories in romance anthologies.
Her fresh, funny style has been likened to such reader favorites as Rachel Gibson, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, LaVyrle Spencer, and Jennifer Crusie, but her unique characterization is all her own.
Lisa’s alter ego is cozy mystery writer Colette London, whose Chocolate Whisperer mystery series featuring globe-trotting chocolatier (and amateur sleuth!) Hayden Mundy Moore includes Criminal Confections, Dangerously Dark, and The Semi-Sweet Hereafter. It will continue with Dead and Ganache in October 2017 (all from Kensington Books).
Her fresh, funny style has been likened to such reader favorites as Rachel Gibson, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, LaVyrle Spencer, and Jennifer Crusie, but her unique characterization is all her own.
Lisa’s alter ego is cozy mystery writer Colette London, whose Chocolate Whisperer mystery series featuring globe-trotting chocolatier (and amateur sleuth!) Hayden Mundy Moore includes Criminal Confections, Dangerously Dark, and The Semi-Sweet Hereafter. It will continue with Dead and Ganache in October 2017 (all from Kensington Books).
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 11, 2011
This is going to be a damned with faint praise kind of review. I really want to love every book I start reading but alas I didn’t with this one. I liked it, but it’s one I know I’ll never read again.
There were parts I liked and parts that I had issues with. The parts I liked; I really liked Owen. He’s a gruff, grumpy bear kind of guy and I liked that about him. He’s a widower whose been told again and again and again by his late wife he must improve his ways until he’s convinced he’s not good enough and must not let any fun into his life. He’s a wonderful, all thumbs kind of father who adores his little girl and will do anything to try and make her happy.
Daisy is equally interesting as a heroine. She’s been emotionally and verbally stomped on by her tour manager until she believes that she pretty incapable of doing anything on her own. But Owen is the opposite, admiring everything about her and making her believe in herself again.
Élodie, Owen’s daughter is a charmer. She wants her father to be happy, she wants to see him smile and she wants a mother. Daisy is the answer to all of these.
And you are asking yourselves what’s wrong? Why isn’t a love it book? Well, the things that didn’t work are what took it down a number of levels. One of the silly reasons is I could never figure out how to pronounce Élodie’s name in my head. Really dumb reason, I know. But I found it annoying and distracting
Another issue I had is the fact that Daisy is pregnant and all the issues around that. It wasn’t that she was pregnant in itself that bothered me. It was that she had no feeling for the father and I don’t know why she would have slept with him in the first place. He didn’t force her, but she had no attraction to him. It was like the only reason she was pregnant in the first place was to make it part of the storyline and that was a fail for me. I also had an issue with the fact that she couldn’t clue in that she was pregnant. It was up to the hero to tell her. Another issue is Owen never had even a nanosecond qualm about the fact that this woman he was falling for big time was preggers by another dude. Owen was a good guy and I could see him accepting the fact that she was, but only after at least a slight struggle certainly.
Another thing I just didn’t get was after a certain time, they lived like man and wife and no one seemed to object. This is a historical and I may be wrong, but I would think the townspeople would at least insist they get married or something. And they were living like this in front of Élodie and neither had the slightest thought that ‘oh, maybe this is wrong for the child to see’. Again, if this were a contemporary it would be a different thing, but it isn’t and it bothered me.
Then at the end they had this convoluted conflict that I didn’t get. I don’t even know if one could call it a misunderstanding exactly but I was scratching my head wondering what their problem was.
The writing was good, it made me smile at times, I liked both the hero and heroine, but ultimately the issues I had kept me from enjoying the book the way I hoped I would. But I do like her writing enough and have in the past, to read other books by her and the issues that tripped me up might not bother others.
There were parts I liked and parts that I had issues with. The parts I liked; I really liked Owen. He’s a gruff, grumpy bear kind of guy and I liked that about him. He’s a widower whose been told again and again and again by his late wife he must improve his ways until he’s convinced he’s not good enough and must not let any fun into his life. He’s a wonderful, all thumbs kind of father who adores his little girl and will do anything to try and make her happy.
Daisy is equally interesting as a heroine. She’s been emotionally and verbally stomped on by her tour manager until she believes that she pretty incapable of doing anything on her own. But Owen is the opposite, admiring everything about her and making her believe in herself again.
Élodie, Owen’s daughter is a charmer. She wants her father to be happy, she wants to see him smile and she wants a mother. Daisy is the answer to all of these.
And you are asking yourselves what’s wrong? Why isn’t a love it book? Well, the things that didn’t work are what took it down a number of levels. One of the silly reasons is I could never figure out how to pronounce Élodie’s name in my head. Really dumb reason, I know. But I found it annoying and distracting
Another issue I had is the fact that Daisy is pregnant and all the issues around that. It wasn’t that she was pregnant in itself that bothered me. It was that she had no feeling for the father and I don’t know why she would have slept with him in the first place. He didn’t force her, but she had no attraction to him. It was like the only reason she was pregnant in the first place was to make it part of the storyline and that was a fail for me. I also had an issue with the fact that she couldn’t clue in that she was pregnant. It was up to the hero to tell her. Another issue is Owen never had even a nanosecond qualm about the fact that this woman he was falling for big time was preggers by another dude. Owen was a good guy and I could see him accepting the fact that she was, but only after at least a slight struggle certainly.
Another thing I just didn’t get was after a certain time, they lived like man and wife and no one seemed to object. This is a historical and I may be wrong, but I would think the townspeople would at least insist they get married or something. And they were living like this in front of Élodie and neither had the slightest thought that ‘oh, maybe this is wrong for the child to see’. Again, if this were a contemporary it would be a different thing, but it isn’t and it bothered me.
Then at the end they had this convoluted conflict that I didn’t get. I don’t even know if one could call it a misunderstanding exactly but I was scratching my head wondering what their problem was.
The writing was good, it made me smile at times, I liked both the hero and heroine, but ultimately the issues I had kept me from enjoying the book the way I hoped I would. But I do like her writing enough and have in the past, to read other books by her and the issues that tripped me up might not bother others.
December 29, 2012
I wanted to like it. Owen was a great hero, gruff and cranky, but a big ole softy for his daughter. Daisy was too stupid for me to like though. She got smarter towards the end of the book, but she was already ruined for me. Elodie didn't seem age-appropriate (by that I mean she seemed more like 6 or 7 than 10, but admittedly I haven't spent that much time with kids other than my younger siblings.) It wasn't bad enough to turn me off the author altogether though, so I'll give her another shot.
June 29, 2023
DNF 34% in. The plot was so frigging contrived and stupid, and the characters actions utterly nonsensical. When we meet our h she's a successful author from a good family who for some reason has slept with her tour manager even though she really doesn't like him... oh... and it would literally spell her UTTER RUIN. Why did she sleep[ with him? Why doesn't she care? We just a get her giving a great big shrug as she dismisses this as no biggie yo.
Next thing we know she runs off, and discovers she's pregnant. Meh, no biggie. She shrugs that off too, she honestly doesn't care and vaguely thinks she can rock it as a single mum, no worries. This book is set in the 1800s, any woman pregnant outside of wedlock would be freaking the f out right about now. Women in this period would be fucking ruined, ruined and shunned and shamed for this... but meh, no woooories right?
Next she shacks up with an unmarried man and within minutes of being in his house she is squeezing his hand, making eyes at him, wondering what it would be like to do it with him. Girl, you're still dealing with the fallout from your last casual shag and within a scant twenty minutes of finding out you're pregnant your eyeing up your next score... did I mention this is a well to do lady who had written a best selling cookbook and does talks about home economics and good housekeeping? She's acting like a whore without a care in the world.
Nope - if you're going to write historical romance at least have some damn respect for the genre and base the plot and characters within the most basic framework of historical realism. This is modern sex positive stuff dressed up in 19th century clothes.
Next thing we know she runs off, and discovers she's pregnant. Meh, no biggie. She shrugs that off too, she honestly doesn't care and vaguely thinks she can rock it as a single mum, no worries. This book is set in the 1800s, any woman pregnant outside of wedlock would be freaking the f out right about now. Women in this period would be fucking ruined, ruined and shunned and shamed for this... but meh, no woooories right?
Next she shacks up with an unmarried man and within minutes of being in his house she is squeezing his hand, making eyes at him, wondering what it would be like to do it with him. Girl, you're still dealing with the fallout from your last casual shag and within a scant twenty minutes of finding out you're pregnant your eyeing up your next score... did I mention this is a well to do lady who had written a best selling cookbook and does talks about home economics and good housekeeping? She's acting like a whore without a care in the world.
Nope - if you're going to write historical romance at least have some damn respect for the genre and base the plot and characters within the most basic framework of historical realism. This is modern sex positive stuff dressed up in 19th century clothes.
January 25, 2015
I can tell that this is a story that may hit readers as black or white, which means I see people either loving it or hating it.
Daisy Walsh is a book smart, street stupid woman of her time, this all goes down in June 1883 in Arizona Territory. She is on a national book tour to promote her housekeeping novel and her tour manager has all to easily preyed on her naivete and took her virginity early on in the tour. Daisy has all the obvious signs of pregnancy, but of course she never thinks of it because she has no experience or friends/family around to notice the changes and nausea.
It is a stranger meeting her for the first time that calls her on her denial about the pregnancy. Owen Cooper is a good man that has done bad things in his past, but for the past ten years he has raised his daughter Élodie by himself since he was widowed by his beloved French wife. I have a hard time believing that he hasn't been with a women in all those years, but then again he has been raising a small impressionable daughter with out a wife or family so he doesn't have anyone to watch her at night.
The meeting of Owen and Daisy is cute and filled with hot tasty chemistry. Although they are in the same bedroom with Daisy's brother, Owen's daughter and a bunch of respectable town ladies. I can just imagine him bursting in shirtless and sweaty to find a beautiful stranger woman resting in his bed; that is really romantic.
Daisy is a breath of fresh air in this tiny town and Owen's stagnant life. I liked how the 'sexy scenes' were handled without any detailed descriptions, but the fact that they happen and then the H/h are closer, but that doesn't prove their love and it takes more then just sleeping together to solve the problems that surround them.
283 pages in this historical western romance novel.
2 and half stars
Daisy Walsh is a book smart, street stupid woman of her time, this all goes down in June 1883 in Arizona Territory. She is on a national book tour to promote her housekeeping novel and her tour manager has all to easily preyed on her naivete and took her virginity early on in the tour. Daisy has all the obvious signs of pregnancy, but of course she never thinks of it because she has no experience or friends/family around to notice the changes and nausea.
It is a stranger meeting her for the first time that calls her on her denial about the pregnancy. Owen Cooper is a good man that has done bad things in his past, but for the past ten years he has raised his daughter Élodie by himself since he was widowed by his beloved French wife. I have a hard time believing that he hasn't been with a women in all those years, but then again he has been raising a small impressionable daughter with out a wife or family so he doesn't have anyone to watch her at night.
The meeting of Owen and Daisy is cute and filled with hot tasty chemistry. Although they are in the same bedroom with Daisy's brother, Owen's daughter and a bunch of respectable town ladies. I can just imagine him bursting in shirtless and sweaty to find a beautiful stranger woman resting in his bed; that is really romantic.
Daisy is a breath of fresh air in this tiny town and Owen's stagnant life. I liked how the 'sexy scenes' were handled without any detailed descriptions, but the fact that they happen and then the H/h are closer, but that doesn't prove their love and it takes more then just sleeping together to solve the problems that surround them.
283 pages in this historical western romance novel.
2 and half stars
November 19, 2016
Just imagine getting into town on the train, and looks like someone special must be expected. Seems like most the town is out to meet the train. Looking around can't imagine who it could be, and realize it's you.
You have been entered as a raffle prize (unknowing). The winner as surprised as you, he didn't enter. Some little busy bodies in the town had put his name in the drawing, and even his 10 year old daughter. Not too excited, but knew he needed help with his daughter, with cooking/sewing/taking care of house. So agreed for you to stay, and the prize could be given to his daughter instead of him.
Although thought this a little odd for a story to take place in 1883. I had read books about Mail Order Brides and knew that happened, but with mail order brides the lady knew what coming into and a marriage before moving in together. With this one Daisy will be staying at their place giving lessons to his daughter about taking care of a home, cooking, sewing, etc. This is what the raffle was for (lessons). These all things Daisy knows about since was in the middle of a book tour promoting her book she wrote on these subjects. So looks like her visit with her brother not turning out like Daisy expected.
But was curious by this time, so continued with the book. Turned out better than expected. Would read more books by the author.
You have been entered as a raffle prize (unknowing). The winner as surprised as you, he didn't enter. Some little busy bodies in the town had put his name in the drawing, and even his 10 year old daughter. Not too excited, but knew he needed help with his daughter, with cooking/sewing/taking care of house. So agreed for you to stay, and the prize could be given to his daughter instead of him.
Although thought this a little odd for a story to take place in 1883. I had read books about Mail Order Brides and knew that happened, but with mail order brides the lady knew what coming into and a marriage before moving in together. With this one Daisy will be staying at their place giving lessons to his daughter about taking care of a home, cooking, sewing, etc. This is what the raffle was for (lessons). These all things Daisy knows about since was in the middle of a book tour promoting her book she wrote on these subjects. So looks like her visit with her brother not turning out like Daisy expected.
But was curious by this time, so continued with the book. Turned out better than expected. Would read more books by the author.
April 18, 2011
Ms. Plumley’s books are always full of humor and romance and this one is no exception. I have always loved her contemporary stories and her historicals are just as good. The inhabitants of Morrow Creek are unique and so very real they almost walk off the page. Owen and Daisy are complex characters with some very real difficulties. The resolution of these problems is the focus of a gripping plot that really held my interest.
Maura
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More
Full Review: http://coffeetimeromance.com/BookRevi...
Maura
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More
Full Review: http://coffeetimeromance.com/BookRevi...
May 5, 2012
I enjoyed this story. This was the first book I read by Lisa Plumley and I will definitely be looking into her other works. The plot was sweet, even if I had a little trouble with some of the romance. It didn't quite fit was was normal in the 1880s, Daisy and Owen living in the same house with his 10 year old daughter, without being married. That just wasn't done then. Overall, the story was great and I would recommened it to others.
*I won this book in a goodreads contest
*I won this book in a goodreads contest
September 28, 2015
Date I was "finished" with the book -- I could not finish. It was not because it was full of errors, typos, poor grammar. But it was silly. The plot was silly. And very far fetched, IMHO. I got about 35% through the book before I just scrolled to the end and backed up three pages. Still silly and I quit.
I did like the character of the little girl. In fact I like the characters if the plot had not been so ...
Sorry...
I did like the character of the little girl. In fact I like the characters if the plot had not been so ...
Sorry...
November 14, 2011
A sweet story with a (very) gullable lady finding her HEA with a single father and his daughter. Glad she found her strength at the end, standing up for herself and the life she wanted. Very sweet, not much smut. *he*
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May 31, 2012I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed it so much I went & bought several more of Lisa Plumley's books. Can't wait to get started on those too. I love when any author can make you laugh outloud & want to cheer for the characters and Lisa did not disappoint.
September 5, 2012
This book was enjoyable but not much happened in it. We spend a long time listening to different thoughts and feeling sorry for themselves, but still nothing really happens.
Although I will say it had a lovely ending - very beautiful in fact.
Although I will say it had a lovely ending - very beautiful in fact.
October 25, 2013
3.5
Simple, pretty yet with many misunderstandings.
I loved Eloide really really loved her and her talk of her baby brother.
I loved that Owen stood up to the heroine since the beginning till the end.
Simple, pretty yet with many misunderstandings.
I loved Eloide really really loved her and her talk of her baby brother.
I loved that Owen stood up to the heroine since the beginning till the end.
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May 1, 2011Miniseries: Morrow Creek
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December 24, 2014Miniseries: Morrow Creek
July 1, 2011
Full of humor and romance, though I think damnation was used a bit too much.
September 24, 2012
very good
April 21, 2015
Preposterous storyline, not very well executed.
April 27, 2015
I liked the cheesy romance. I wish there was an epilogue with a flash forward of Daisy with the baby and their new family. It would've been really cute. Western tales are always fun.
:)
:)
December 11, 2016
Good reading.
Read
February 28, 2013Really enjoyed this one. :)
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews