Marianne (Australia) (2012/05/26): Return to Promise is the eighth and last Heart of Texas novel by Debbie Macomber and is set a few years after Promise, Texas. Nicole Nelson returns to Promise after leaving town with her friend Jennifer Healy (who had just left Cal Patterson standing at the altar), some ten years previous. As soon as ex-Sheriff Frank Hennessey spots her, he tells his wife Dovie that Nicole is trouble. And he’s right! Even though Nicole seems sweet and friendly, she has her sights set on Cal Patterson, despite his wife and two children. Her father’s nasty accident has Jane Patterson and her children travelling to California to be with her mother, leaving the way clear for Nicole to set tongues wagging. Readers will be pleased to revisit Promise after an interval of a few years, to reconnect with characters from the previous seven books, and to see how Cal and Jane manage to mess things up in their seemingly perfect marriage. This instalment has humour and heartache, casseroles and cattle-riding, romance and rejection, a funeral and ultimately, a happy Christmas. The only thing Macomber didn’t resolve was whether Cal will be allowed to keep riding in the rodeo…… Mail-Order Bride is the 30th stand-alone romance novel by Debbie Macomber and is set in the small and very remote town of Gold River, Alaska. After she was recently jilted, Caroline Myers’s scheming great aunts decided, under the influence of Father’s “tea”, that they would answer an ad for a mail-order bride on her behalf. Believing they had bought her a holiday in Alaska, she travelled to Gold River, imbibing in a lot of Father’s brew on the way when the flight got a little hairy, and took part in a ceremonial welcome that involved her agreeing to something….. When she woke the next morning, she found she’d agreed to be Paul Trevor’s wife. This delightful romance has a rather ditzy heroine, a very patient hero and while occasionally bringing a lump to the throat, also, at times borders on slapstick comedy. This sweet Debbie Macomber offering is a fun read.
