Review: Nellie - Cynthia Woolf - Paranormal Romance Guild

Title: Nellie
Series: The Brides of San Francisco Book 1
Author: Cynthia Woolf
Genre: Historical Western Romance
Publisher: Cynthia Woolf
Release Date: November 9, 2014
Format: ebook and print
Pages: 361

Nellie Wallace is a young widow with two children. In post civil-war New York, the men are scarce and none want the burden of a wife with children. Her dead husband's family is wealthy, and cruel. Desperate to escape their influence, and eager for a home, a husband, and a stable life for her children, Nellie decides to make a new life in San Francisco as a mail order bride.

Saloon owner Blake Malone is a bachelor and likes it that way. He worked hard for everything he has, but the San Francisco City Council won't approve his plans to build a family emporium unless he is a family man himself. The solution? A mail order bride from New York who will bring him a ready-made family, stability, and the council's approval.

Blake expects his future wife to care for his home and, other than helping him impress the city council, to stay out of his business. He expects life as usual. What he gets is an unexpected desire to win Nellie's heart, a dangerous threat to his new bride, and a rich benefactor determined to steal his new family out from under him. Blake believed his battle for success a hard one. But he will discover that the battle to win Nellie's heart and keep his family safe is going to take everything he's got.
Steam Heat Level - Hot

Reviewed by: Linda Tonis

Member of the Paranormal Romance Review Team

The story takes place in 1865, New York where Nellie Wallace and her daughter, Violet, and son, Henry, live while her husband is at war. One fateful day a knock on the door changes her life forever. The knock is from a soldier informing her that her husband Robert died at the Battle of Appomattox. Now Nellie is a widow with two small children to care for. All she has to depend on are her in-laws, who pay her rent and never let her even once forget that they are doing so for the children. If not for them, she would be homeless.

Two years after Robert’s death, Nellie decides to apply to Matchmaker & Co. as a mail-order-bride. She can no longer live with her in-laws running her life; she needs someone who is willing to take on a woman with two small children. When she meets with the owner, Margaret Selby, she is told that there is a man in San Francisco, wealthy, never been married, and who specifically requested a widow with children. His name is Blake Malone. He needs a woman with children to help him be taken seriously in expanding his business. He presently owns a saloon, but wants to build a more legitimate business.

Nellie takes off for San Francisco with her children and her nanny and friend Bertha. They are met at the hotel where another knock on the door will again change her life. Standing on the other side of the door is a gorgeous man who could be her new husband. Blake decided at first sight he wanted to marry Nellie. When three year old Violet ran into his arms and gave him a sloppy kiss, Nellie knew he was the man for her. They married the next day and set off for his home, or as Nellie referred to it, a mansion.

Things were falling into place until the arrival of Blake’s ex-mistress, Madeline Singer. Maddie works at the saloon and was convinced that her relationship with Blake would not change after he took a wife. She was very wrong. Blake feels he is incapable of loving anyone, but for some reason he is determined to be faithful to his new wife whom he can’t wait to bed.

Nellie fears sex since sex with her husband involved suffering and pain. He would beat her or strangle her. When he was not home was the only time she felt safe. Now she is married to a man who promises not to touch her until she is ready and promises that sex should not hurt. Can Nellie get over her fear? Is Blake really incapable of loving someone? Will this mail order marriage lead to a happily-ever-after?

I love these kinds of books and have read a great many of Ms. Woolf’s mail-order-bride stories. They are full of romance, sex, love, suspense and two strangers who have a chance at a new life. Although it might seem inconceivable that two people can meet, marry and fall in love in a very short time, it is after all make believe. I get to leave reality behind and enjoy a wonderful love story. Nellie is a tough woman devoted to her children and her new husband in spite of the fact that he doesn’t love her. I like to believe that these kinds of things can happen. I will be watching a new TV show called Mail-Order-Murders which is the opposite of Ms. Woolf’s books. They are real life stories and they apparently don’t end well, that is reality, which is why I prefer make believe.