“Forged in Love” takes place in the 1870s in the wild west of Wyoming. It is a romance with adventure, mystery and action. The main character Mariah Stover is a passenger on a stagecoach that gets robbed.
Mariah ends up getting a few shots off before the stagecoach wrecks and overturns, trapping her beneath it. She almost dies from this incident and takes a few weeks to recover.
She is the local blacksmith in town and Clint (the man who owns the only cafe in town) secretly loves her. He is very protective of her once he finds out about her accident and the gang that robbed the coach. This gang’s reputation is to never leave a witness alive. To stop the gang from looking for her, the town doctor, Clint, and Mariah’s friends make a plan to tell everyone she died in the stage robbery.
The plan works for a short time until they all let their guard down and a determined Mariah goes back to her job blacksmithing. She tells her friends and Clint that she will not hide away from the gang and be afraid to live.
She tries to continue on with life but one of the gang members finds her and starts to do his best to set traps for her that will kill her. Mariah is fierce and with the help of her community, Clint and her two best friends she fights back against the threats on her life.
Things do not go as planned and Clint proves to be a great protector. Soon she realizes she has feelings for him and wants to have him in her life. This causes trouble for her because she wants to continue working as a blacksmith and she’s worried Clint would make her stop working and have her work at his cafe.
This book has the intrigue and suspense of a good read. It portrays the harsh reality of living in Wyoming during unsettled times. The main character is strong and determined, and so are her two female best friends.
It brings to light how women in the 1870s had different roles besides being wives and mothers, hat women in the West worked hard and did jobs that were believed to be jobs only males would do.
The book is the first one in the Wyoming Sunrise Series. The second book is “The Laws of Attraction.” The third book is “Marshaling Her Heart.” The first book in the series can be found at the Lincoln County Library, Alpine and Star Valley branches.
