Texas Destiny (Texas Trilogy #1)

[vintageromancereader]

She was his brother's wife...

Arriving on the Fort Worth train, Miss Amelia Carson, mail-order bride, had never met Dallas Leigh, the Texan she promised to marry. The tall cowboy at the station wasn't Dallas. He was Houston, Dallas's brother, sent to escort her on the rugged three-week trek to the ranch where Dallas waited. Brought up in war-ravaged Georgia, Amelia thought Dallas's letters made Texas sound like heaven, a place for her dreams to grow with the right man beside her.

And his only love...

By all appearances, Houston Leigh would hardly be considered the "right man." The war he survived had scarred him inside and out, and he was little competition for his handsome brother. But from the moment Houston met Amelia, he knew she possessed the courage this wild land needed. She had eyes that could see past his wounded face to his soul. And he would fight any man — except his brother — for her heart. Now he and Amelia were riding down dangerous trails, sleeping under the stars, and God help them, they were falling in love.

Original Publisher: Signet
Original Year of Publication: 1997
Page Count: 384

A solid read, one that didn't live up to the hype I'd built up in my head over the years between when I discovered this book (during its time out of print) and when I was finally able to read it.

This book is one half road trip, and one half tortured soulmates/forbidden love. The author could've played this the easy way, but she didn't. Nothing major happens to the hero and heroine during their journey from Fort Worth to Dallas Leigh's ranch, and Amelia follows through with her contract and marries Dallas, even after confessing that she's fallen in love with Houston. Of course, working through this tangled knot of fate and fortune isn't easy, but it's also somewhat less than satisfying. There are a lot of contrived events, not the least of which is that Dallas and Amelia never actually consummate their marriage, therefore allowing grounds for an annulment. This deflates the end of the book, IMO, because nobody really had to take a stand and admit their failings that led to the tangled knot. It feels like a cop-out, which is not surprising given that the characters feel less than fully mature adults. But, kudos for taking the variation on the theme: it certainly made the book imminently readable!

Houston is your standard Beast archtype: tortured soul hidden deep behind a disfiguring mask. He is very beta, but openly admits that he lives his life in abject fear, and said fear informs the choices he makes. He's a loner, and he resents that his brother Dallas sent him to fetch his mail-order bride, but he swallows his objections (actually, he never makes them), and does his duty by his brother. I could certainly understand the appeal of his character - his scars from the Civil War run deep, and I appreciated his view of his life and his choices - and why Amelia falls for him so quickly.

What I couldn't understand was why he fell for her. Amelia is a 19-year-old orphan, the last living member of her immediate family. She has no hope and no future, and therefore nothing to lose when she places the advertisement to become a mail-order bride. She is very childish and immature at the beginning, and though she does eventually develop some depth of character, I couldn't really buy that she was this super-courageous, valiant, brave woman. She cries at the drop of a hat and acts quite juvenile both during the road trip and afterwards. Yet somehow Houston's pants feelings instalust is supposed to read as true love. I wasn't buying it.

It also annoyed me that Amelia was characterized as this grown woman/old soul at 19, whereas Austin, at 16, acted (and was treated) more like a precocious 6-year-old. He actually asks if Amelia, by marrying his eldest brother Dallas, was going to be his new ma! o.O

So this was a decent read, and I'm glad I was finally able to take it off Mt. TBR, but I'm also glad that I was patient enough to wait and get this one from the library instead of buying it blind.

⭐⭐⭐