Review: Sometimes a Stomach Ache Isn't All Bad
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 1, 2013
If you're a fan of Western romances, I think you'll like Rose Gordon's The Officer and the Bostoner. It's not your typical cowboy and/or sherrif and ranch/small town story. The action for this one all takes place on a fairly rustic military fort in the middle of Indian Territory.When Allison Pierson, a well-to-do young Bostonian, steps off her stagecoach at its coach stop to find some peppermints for her queasy stomach, she has no idea it is not small settlement built up around the stage stop but a military fort deep in Indian Territory. Haggling with the shopkeeper, who Allison is certain is out to rob her, she ends up stranded the drunken coach driver leaves without her.As at most Western forts of the time, there are few women at the compound - in fact, the only two are much older, the wives of the fort's commanders. Enter Allison's unlikely rescue in the person of Captain Wes Tucker, who insists on calling her a Bostoner. The captain gives Allison two choices: either temporarily marry an officer for protection from the female-companion starved men of the post, or take her chances crossing the Indian Territory on foot to try to catch the stagecoach. Some choice! So Allison agrees to a hasty marriage to Tucker himself, and settles into life on the post as she waits for the next stage to arrive in several weeks and take her to California to meet her intended, Nicholas.An unlikely pair on the surface, but Allison and Wes share more than they realize. Humor, temper, determination, and a growing attraction to one another. But they both also have secrets, and those secrets threaten to drive a wedge between them.Ms. Gordon brings the characters to life with humor and skill. I'd never read any of her books before, but this one kept me up all night reading. I was torn as I read the story. I wanted a happily ever after for Wes and Allison, but I definitely hated to see the story end.Now, I can hardly wait to read more of this talented author.