Klondike Wedding

Klondike Wedding Kate Bridges Harlequin Historical September 2007 Fresh starts. Would you be willing to risk everything and begin a new life even if you weren't truly in love with the man you planned to marry? I believe it would take an incredibly strong woman to believe she could make a happy life in such a situation. Kate Bridges has such a woman with Genevieve Summerville. Genevieve needed a fresh start. She was practically broke, but she had faith she could build a successful business if given half a chance. To begin this new life, she promises herself to Joshua McFadden, a gold miner. She remembered him vaguely from childhood. He wrote letters to her aunt and uncle. In one of them, he formally asked for her hand in marriage. Genevieve accepted happily. She needed him and her aunt and uncle would be close by to make the new life feel safe. After making the arduous journey to rugged Dawson City, Yukon on her own, she discovers her husband-to-be is out searching for gold but a proxy wedding has been arranged. " `I now pronounce you man and wife.' The old judge coughed. `Sort of." " Mountie Inspector Luke Buxton Hunter couldn't help but think Joshua was a lucky man and a fool. Why would a man want to miss his own wedding, especially when his bride was beautiful? While waiting for the judge to finish the paperwork, Luke noticed the judge was in some distress. He did not look well at all. Luke ordered some water for the old man and tried to help him. Only it was too late. The judge was past any care and died. After a quick evaluation, Luke believes the judge had measles and with dread informs the entire wedding party they were all quarantined for the next 14 days. To make matters worse, the sick judge filled the papers out incorrectly. Luke and Genevieve were legally married to each other. It would take another judge to straighten this mess out and who knows how long that would take. Surrounded by an angry group of strangers, all friends of her aunt and uncle, Genevieve was in shock. Quarantined with a real fear from a frightful disease and married to the wrong man was almost too much to deal with. This is not what she dreamed of, but she would have to make the best of a bad situation. Genevieve hoped Joshua would understand when he returned to town. This was no way to begin her fresh start. I was amused and hooked from the very first line of Klondike Wedding. Ms. Bridges does not stop with her twist of a proxy wedding gone wrong. She has more surprises in store for her readers, not all amusing. All I'll say is that it is a good thing Luke is a Mountie Inspector because all is not as it seems and there is a mystery to be solved. It is amazing that love has a chance to develop with all that happens within the well written pages but, Ms. Bridges creates the passion of love with her extraordinary gift for Genevieve and the unsuspecting Mountie.. Kim Swiderski Writers Unlimited

In 1898, Genevieve Summerville arrives from Montana in Dawson City, Yukon to get married. However, since her fiancé Joshua McFadden is in the goldfields, Mountie Inspector Luke Hunter agrees to be the groom's proxy. Judge Donahue presides over the ceremony and after pronouncing them as man and wife, he drops dead. On the marriage certificate, Donahue wrote Genevieve Summerville and Luke Hunter. The entire wedding party who came into contact with Donahue is quarantined until authorities can determine what or who killed the judge. As the Mountie and the Big Sky expatriate fall in love with a zillion chaperones, Joshua returns to town to see his woman. With a touch of a medical mystery (what killed the judge?) to enhance a delightful late nineteenth century Canadian romance, Kate Bridges refreshes her wonderful Mountie tales. Luke is a gentle person except when it comes to criminals but though he desires his wife he feels guilty re his friend; while Genevieve is a confused soul as she desires her spouse but also wonders what to do about her fiancé; Joshua rounds out the confused triangle nicely as he thinks American woman come away with me (The Guess Who will get over it as we American Women know our worth is beyond war machines). KLONDIKE WEDDING is another vivid northern neighborly historical winner. Harriet Klausner