Review: Beckham Gets Better
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 13, 2013
Esther Perry is thrilled while preparing dinner for Charles, her husband of six months, as she has special news to share....she just discovered she is pregnant with their first child. Esther and Charlie were school room sweethearts and they fell in love when they were 12 years old. Charlie never made it home for that special dinner that night. During a frantic, lonely search, Esther finds Charlie's body. He had been kicked in the head by his horse while working far from the house in one of the corn fields.Because Charlie's family had more land and wealth, his mother felt Esther was not good enough for her son. Esther's family was large, strapped for cash with no room to take her in and an upcoming baby. Charlie was working a section of his father's land that would have someday been his, but not at the time of his death. Esther knew she would not want her in-laws raising her baby.While reading the newspaper to find work, she comes across the add for a mail order bride service run by Harriet Long of the now famous "Beckham Brides."  Could she get married again? Could she find a good man who would marry not only a recent widow, but a widow in early pregnancy? Would he love and care for another man's child?Once again Harriet saves another woman. She just happens to have a letter from a man in Kansas. Thomas Wilson is a homesteader who moved out west with his older brother as an older teenager. Now that his home was built and his fields were getting established, he is lonely. There are only a few other families farming the area and he is the only bachelor. He has not had any responses to his request for a mail order bride and is about to give up when he receives Esther's letter. I won't be a spoiler and tell more, but Esther and Thomas's story is delightful and sweet.This is the sixth book in the Brides of Beckham series and I have enjoyed every one of them. They actually read more like a serial, which makes this series more interesting and unique than other series romances. This author has a talent for writing that endears you to the characters, leaving a warm and tender feeling, during and long after the book is finished. The character of Harriet Long at first is a mystery, and then with each book the author gives the reader a little more information that keeps you wondering and waiting for the next installment. The  mystery and hopefully the happy ending that Harriet helps many other women achieve, will finally be hers in the next book? I really enjoy this series and find myself searching the new releases often for the next book. I highly recommend the Brides of Beckham books, especially for those readers who enjoy pioneer, western and/or mail order bride romances. They are a perfect afternoon read!