Carol Cox (1)

I have a group of three books that I want to read close together. All of them have women protagonist, are set in either Arizona or Texas in about the same time period of 1878 to 1893. This one by Carol Cox is a mystery romance. The author is married to a pastor, so her books have a Christian viewpoint, but she is never preachy and inserts a lot of humor into her books.

Set in the fictional town of Granite Springs, Arizona in 1893. Amelia Wagner is excited to make the trip to Granite Springs to visit and work for her father in the Granite Springs Gazette, the town's newspaper. Her mother and father have been separated for years, while Amelia lived with her mother and got her education. But her mother was determined to marry her off quickly, and Amelia hated the social gathering that her mother had continuously.

When she arrives, she finds that her father has been stricken with cancer and will not be able to recover. Amelia loved the newspaper and her father's determination to seek the truth. Her father had a loyal older worker, Homer, who nursed her father until she arrived and was a great at keeping the Peerless Jobbing Press in working order. (If you search for it, you can find videos of it being run.

Her father was in the midst of uncovering a story, with very bad overtones, of the Great Western Investment Company. After the burial of her beloved father, Amelia starts back on uncovering the story. Benjamin Stone, a new hire at the company, reluctantly take the assignment of keeping tabs on Amelia.

I loved the writing style, the historical tidbits, humor and the way that the story took off at the beginning and I did not want to stop reading it.… (més)