Spotlight & Giveaway: Marrying Off Morgan McBride by Amy Barry

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Amy Barry’s new release: Marrying Off Morgan McBride

The McBride brothers are in for a matrimonial surprise when an enterprising woman answers their little sister’s mail order bride advertisement in this laugh-out-loud historical romance.

 
As the oldest of the McBride siblings, Morgan had to be protector and shepherd since Ma died and Pa ran off. It hasn’t always been easy, especially when his heart longs to roam on the trail. But now that his brother Kit is married and settled, the time is right for Morgan to leave Buck’s Creek. Little does he know that his hellcat of a little sister Junebug is dead set on keeping him at home and getting more help around the house – all with one honest advertisement in The Matrimonial News.

Epiphany Hopgood has always had a gift for doing the exact wrong thing. She’s too tall, too loud, too opinionated, and too contrary for her family and community. Staring down the barrel of spinsterhood, she and her grandmother answer a seemingly straightforward ad for a bride.

But when Pip shows up to Buck’s Creek, she finds that Morgan McBride is not the husband she expected. In fact, he doesn’t even want to be a husband. But maybe there’s a way to make everyone happy out on the Montana frontier…

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Marrying Off Morgan McBride 

Buck’s Creek, Montana, 1887

Junebug drummed her fingers against the trading post counter. She was perched up on the stool, watching the store while her brothers were over in the meadow, building Kit and his new wife a house. Junebug had been banned from the building site, which was just plumb unfair. It wasn’t her fault the doorframe got split. Beau should never have left her in charge of it in the first place. He was nothing but a lazy, no-good shirker. Still, Junebug didn’t want to be out there in the soggy old meadow nohow, sweating up a stink while they all growled at each other. She was quite happy here, with her pot of coffee and her complaints book. She’d filled up two whole pages with complaints—It makes me sick the way Beau flops out of work like a boneless rabbit; they got no right keeping me prisoner up here and not letting me off down to Bitterroot on my own—why, some gals are married by now and spitting out kids of their own, and I cain’t even go for a walk by my ownsome; if I have to do laundry when I don’t want to, I don’t see why Maddy gets out of it, just because Kit’s all kicked‑ in‑the‑head over her . . .

Last year, Junebug had got the bright idea of ordering up a mail- order bride to help her with the chores. Hell, she had four enormous hungry men to look after up here—she needed help. And she had found a wife, after some trial and error . . .

Junebug remembered the first woman she’d hooked with her advertisement with no small measure of horror. Willabelle Las- calles had been the wrongest kind of woman possible for a Mc- Bride. Especially for Kit, Junebug’s great big hulking blacksmith of a brother. Willabelle Lascalles had been like a china doll, all frilled and fancy, with pale pink kidskin boots not at all fit for the muddy mountain meadows of Buck’s Creek. Worse, she was a mean china doll. The kind that wanted cosseting. Or else.

Thank goodness Junebug had been able to head that off. She didn’t need a china doll. She needed a cook. And someone who could deal with the caterpillars who kept infesting the vegetable patch. And maybe someone to do the laundry too . . .

She’d thought she’d found her answer in Willabelle’s maid. A maid was perfect. And Kit had been good enough to fall in love with her and everything. It should have solved all her problems. Junebug scowled at the ink-scratched pages of her complaints book. But, in actual fact, things were worse than ever. It turned out Maddy the Maid could only cook colcannon mash and pandy—and Junebug was sick to death of potatoes in all their mash, as were her broth- ers. Which meant Junebug was stuck back in the cookhouse, cook- ing for them all. And she hated cooking. Almost as much as she hated laundry. Which she still had to do, because Kit had declared that he and Maddy were setting up house and Maddy was only re- sponsible for the two of them. Ugh. Which left three whole broth- ers Junebug had to launder for.

And then there was the problem of Morgan . . .

Excerpt. ©Amy Barry. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: One finished copy of Marrying Off Morgan McBride by Amy Barry

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Meet the Author:

Amy Barry writes sweeping historical stories about love. She’s fascinated with the landscapes of the American West and their complex long history, and she’s even more fascinated with people in all their weird tangled glory. Amy also writes under the names Amy T Matthews and Tess LeSue, and is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Flinders University in Australia.

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