Description:

After sending for a mail-order bride, a rancher struggles to win her love

Max Bass fidgets as he scans the horizon for the stagecoach. His mail-order bride from back east is on that stage, but he feels no joy at the prospect of meeting her. A wannabe rancher, Max exaggerated his financial standing when he advertised for a wife; he fears that she will be disappointed or even angry, but he has no idea what he is actually in for.

Catherine O’Dowd has long dreamed of being a lady, and she expects Max to make one of her. But instead of the riches Max described, she finds a hardscrabble bit of prairie that demands every drop of sweat the two of them have to give. A crooked banker wants to steal Max’s land, and the weather threatens to forever erase any hope he has of raising cattle. But the most powerful force of nature in Montana is Max’s new wife. If he is not careful, she will bring him down, and take the entire state with her.

Originally published as Incident at Pishkin Creek.

**

From Publishers Weekly

Not a lot happens here, but Svee ( Spirit Wolf ) vividly portrays beauty and a sense of daily life in Montana near the turn of the century. Former cowboy Max Bass, struggling to build up his ranch and small coal business, advertises for a mail-order bride. When Catherine O'Dowd, Irish immigrant maid, arrives from Boston, she's taken with Max initially but her dream of becoming a lady married to a "Montana entrepreneur" doesn't come true. She rebels at life in a prairie dugout and wants to leave, but Max insists that she stay--at least until the priest returns in three months. While enlivened by well-done set pieces--a barn-raising, the rescue of a child from a flooding creek and a running battle with a scheming banker--most of the book is occupied with the fierce contest of wills, the conflict between Max's urge toward family and Catherine's fight for freedom.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

An aged plot is freshened with humor, wonderful characters, and strikingly beautiful descriptions of the Montana prairie. Max Bass of Prairie Rose lies a bit when he advertises for a bride. When Catherine O'Dowd, from Ireland via Boston, sees her new home--a dugout--sparks fly and continue to fly until the end of the book. These two are well matched--hot tempered, sharp-tongued, stubborn. Their precarious situation is complicated by Aloysius Phillips, a crooked and acquisitive banker who hates them both. Painfully they learn to work together to survive the machinations of Phillips, and Montana storms, drought, and heat. A delightful story.
- Sister Avila, Acad. of Holy Agels, Minneapolis
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.