"The Bride Ship" by Regina Scott

Allegra Banks Howard has escaped from Boston Society with her daughter Gillian. What had once seemed to have been a privileged life had seen and felt like more of cage for both her and her daughter once her husband Frank had been killed in the war. Now, in an effort to free them both from the restrictions imposed by her parents and their friends, Allie has taken her daughter and seeks a new life in Seattle.

Allie, her daughter, and a number of others are seeking something new, something that will be hers and that she won’t allow another man to control or take from her and Gillian. However first she must manage to get to Seattle without being forced back to Boston, as well as to find a way in which she will be able to support herself in such a small frontier town with little other than the skills she was taught while she was a debutante. Unfortunately, the skills she does possess are ones that most all of the women making the trip also possess.

And then, of course, there are the men seeking to either marry her or send her back to her well-to-do family where she would be expected to marry again. And when a former suitor, her late husband’s brother shows up to try to convince that Seattle is not the place for her, can she convince him that it is exactly where she needs to be?

I enjoyed this book. It was a nice quick read as well as being something that brought a smile to my face. It was nice to see a main character in what is essentially a mail-order bride story who was not solely wanting to become a bride again.. I really liked seeing Allie stand up for her right to not be forced into another marriage as well as her right to raise her daughter as she sees fit. For someone raised to behave in a certain manner, that isn’t always an easy thing to do.