Mail-Order Misfire, a sweet, faith-based romance novel written by Davalynn Spencer, is set in nineteenth-century Colorado. It is a beautifully written book. Spencer’s descriptions and prose are lovely, almost poetic at times. She captures the historic atmosphere and setting perfectly. The Christian elements are well done, and much appreciated. It’s refreshing to read a romance without worrying about explicit material. The characters of Mail-Order Misfire are nicely written and fleshed out. They feel realistic and likable and their love story will have readers rooting for them all the way to the end. This book is a must-read for any lovers of Christian and historical romance. This is a fantastic story. – H.S. for Readers’ Favorite
For love of a little girl, will two widowed hearts give hope a second chance?
Preacher Bern Stidham is a peacemaker—when he’s not carrying one on his hip. His little girl wants a helper for her widowed father and a mama for herself, so she writes for a mail-order bride. Without telling him.
Recently widowed dressmaker Etta Collier is a half-step ahead of the banker who carries a lustful eye for her as well as the note on her home. When her pastor encourages her to answer an unusual letter from a little girl, hope opens an unexpected door.
Running from one man’s lecherous pursuit into the home of another she knows nothing about, Etta may have to risk everything to ease a little girl’s loneliness and find a second chance at love.
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Prologue
Lockton, Colorado – 1879
Gracie slid a thin sheet of paper from the top drawer of her papa’s desk and held her breath, listening for his steps on the porch. It would take him only a little while to finish chores, but she had already memorized what she wanted to say.
Perching on the edge of his desk chair, she unstopped the ink well, and dipped his pen, taking pains not to drip on the leather-cornered blotter. Carefully she penned her plea.
What did the hymn say? The one they’d sung yesterday at church—“Blest be the tie that binds … each other’s burdens bear.” That was it.
Since Mama died, Papa didn’t have anyone to help bear his burden other than Gracie herself, and if she understood the words to the song as she believed she did, then God wanted her papa to have a helper.
She signed his name and addressed an envelope to the pastor in Independence who had married her parents. Then she ran to her room and hid the letter beneath her pillow. When Papa went to work tomorrow and she went to school, she’d stop by the mercantile and slip the letter into the storekeeper’s mail pouch.
Peeking through her lacy curtains, she let loose a whisper. “Oh Lord, I pray this ain’t lying I’m about to do, but my papa needs a tie that binds his heart up. It’s been hurting for such a long time.”
She smoothed her pillow and quilt, then took all her nine years of knowledge to the kitchen and made biscuits for supper, confident that the Lord heard her prayer. She’d been taught to believe such things since before she could remember. Why, just yesterday the preacher’s words had stirred through her heart, telling her to have faith, to trust God. And she believed those words.
Especially since the preacher was her papa.
