Courting Miss Emma

Emma Taggart dedicates her life to caring for her charges at Heaven’s Door Orphanage. She loves them without reservation, and figures they’re the closest she’ll come to having children of her own. So when her new neighbor, former soldier Stone Landry, shows up one day and accuses her of failing to keep an eye on them, she doesn’t take it very well. But when an attorney shows up saying that neither the orphanage nor Landry have any claim to the land they’re living on and have to vacate the premises, Stone and Emma realize they’ve got to work together to keep their homes. No-good rancher Zeke Parker will stop at nothing to take the land out from under them all, and Stone isn’t going to let that happen.

I love, love, love, Linda Broday’s books! I had only good things to say about the first in this series, Winning Maura’s Heart, and she continues the story in fine fashion with Courting Miss Emma.

As one of the hangman’s daughters, Emma has given up on the idea of love. Sure, her sister Maura managed to escape the fate of being the hangman’s daughter, but Emma reckons that won’t happen for her. She envisions potential epitaphs for herself as a lonely spinster, and those are by turns wryly funny and heartbreaking.

Linda Broday gives us a lot to focus on in this book! There’s the main story of the dastardly land grab by the villainous Zeke Parker. We also get to meet a new, unexpected Taggart family member, and in wonderful found family fashion, Stone takes in a young man and does a pretty good job of parenting even though he thinks his own past makes him unsuitable as a father.

There’s action aplenty, with gun battles and a kidnapping (that doesn’t go quite according to the kidnappers’ plans). But there’s also that sweet, sizzling romance. Broday writes clean romance that, for its lack of on-page spice (which I appreciate!), may still leave you fanning yourself because my, doesn’t it seem a bit warm in here? They get off to a rough start, but the chemistry between Emma and Stone practically burns off the page from the get-go, and I am here for it. They’re two wonderfully flawed people who’ve learned to expect the worst from life that find each other and realize that maybe life’s best isn’t out of reach for them after all.

I love that Emma isn’t some wilting violet. She isn’t afraid to jump into the thick of things, and she also isn’t afraid to tell Stone Landry exactly what she thinks. She’s a heroine who doesn’t just wring her hand and wait timidly to be rescued when she finds herself in a difficult spot. She’s resourceful and uses what she’s got to make it easier for her rescuers to get her out of harm’s way.

The children are just wonderful. Emma loves them with all her heart, and maybe they grow on Stone a little, too! Their interactions with Stone and his camels are hilarious, and their determination to help their beloved Miss Emma is touching. I want to reach into the pages and hug them all.

And yes, I said camels! Stone has rescued camels that were mustered out of military service. If you’re a long-time reader of the blog, you may remember another Lone Star Lit book that talked about the military camels of Texas, Once Upon a Camel. That book is for a younger audience, but I loved it, too, and it was fun seeing the camels show up in a different context.

Found family, sweet romance, action, tension, hope rising from the ashes – Courting Miss Emma has everything I love in a book. It’s in the running to be one of my favorite books of 2023.