Courting Miss Hattie

The news spread like brush fire through the whole county when widower Ancil Drayton announced his intention to start courting Miss Hattie Colfax. She was certainly spirited and delightfully sweet natured, and she'd managed to run her family farm almost single-handedly. But wasn't a twenty-nine-year-old lady farmer too old to catch a husband? An Irresistable Suitor. All his life handsome, black-haired Reed Tyler had worked Miss Hattie's farm--and dreamed of one day settling down on his own piece of land with the pretty young woman he'd sworn to marry. Hattie was someone he could tell his hopes and troubles to--someone he looked on as a sister. So he thought, until the idea of Ancil Drayton calling on her made him seethe. Until the night a brotherly peck became a scorching kiss... and Reed knew nothing would bank the blaze--and that his best friend was the only woman he would ever love.

The national bestselling author of Runabout offers a charming new novel about Meggie, who has long dreamed of her prince. She finds him in the Harvard-educated man who comes to her Ozark town to research folk songs. Even though he is consumed by his studies, Meggie proves an invaluable help, and he soon learns the value of true love.

"Like Lavyrle Spencer, Pamela Morsi writes tender books about decent people struggling to find love." - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Fortysomething Ellen Jameson is currently downsizing her life, a term she prefers over ones like widowed, broke and homeless. After her husband’s untimely death, she was forced to sell his business and their family home to pay off the debt. Now, with her partyhardy, twenty-one-year-old daughter Amber in tow, along with Amber’s three-year-old daughter, Jet, Ellen has moved home with her mother, Wilma, a serial bride for whom stability is a dirty word. And the changes keep on coming. Ellen’s new job at The Cowboy of Taxes has a revolving door of down-on-their-luck clients--perfect for Ellen, considering her recent experiences. In the meantime she has something of a revolving door at home, given her mother and daughter remain convinced that men will solve their money problems. But life is what you make it, and in colorful San Antonio, Texas, four generations of women discover that the most important thing about having a past is letting it go.

There comes a time in every woman's life when she must get herself a man or give up the idea entirely... After three long years of patiently waiting for her reluctant, handsome, gentlemanly Amos Dewey, to pop the question, Augusta Mudd--owner of her small town's biggest factory--decides it's time to take matters in her own hands. With the help of her friend, ruggedly attractive Rome Akers, she's determined to make Amos jealous--and get him to the altar--before it's too late. Rome Akers wasn't ready to settle down. But by pretending to make Augusta his partner for life he had a chance to become her business partner instead. Yet despite his best intentions, the closer he gets to this intelligent, sweet woman, the stronger his feelings grow. Their tantalizing conversations and tender kisses ignite a desire more passionate than Roman ever imagined. Soon he'll do anything to make Augusta a bride--but only if he gets to be the groom.

Jane Lofton may have grown up as a nobody, but she didn't stay one for long. Not once she figured out that hard work, tenacity and blond ambition were a girl's best friend. Of course, having the right husband doesn't hurt, either. But being rich and successful is not all it's cracked up to be. Okay, maybe it is–but life is still tough.

It was without a doubt the most conniving, lowlife trick ever played on a man. But it was for a good cause... Eulie Toby didn't like playing tricks, but the only way she could keep her younger orphaned siblings together was to get married--and Moss Collier was the perfect choice. Handsome and kind, he seemed so lonely living with his hermit uncle on that pretty sweep of Tennessee mountaintop. It didn't matter if their vows came at the end of a shotgun; Eulie promised Moss she'd make him the best wife in all of the Sweetwood. But a young bride and a ready-made family were the last things on Moss's mind. He had big dreams of going West and nothing was going to stop him--not Eulie's sweet innocence...not her deliciously kissable lips...and especially not that growing warmth deep inside his heart every time she came near. Moss had plans all right--but he hadn't planned on falling in love.

Marrying Stone, Arkansas is the setting for the story of a simple man and a widow who needs to provide her son with the best childhood and father that she can find. She makes a commitment to the elders of the town that she will marry by Christmas and all the marriageable men begin to visit Althea at her place on the mountain to court her. The man most unlikely to win is a man is "simple" Jess, but he is the one with the biggest heart and most loving nature.

Esme Crabb has spent a lifetime in the mountains trying to stir up good gravy from watery "poor-do". And she's had no help from her ne'er-do-well father or silly sisters. The family lives rough and gets by beholden to their neighbors. Esme was hoping the twins could marry well, but like everything that needs doing in her family, it seems she has to do it herself. Cleavis Rhy, Vader, Tennessee's prosperous storekeep hardly takes notice of the raggedy hill girl. That is until she asks him to marry her. That will never happen. Cleav, a would-be gentleman, has been all the way to Knoxville for study. And as self-taught pisciculturist he corresponds with some of the best academics in the field. He has a love of reading and an enjoyment of stimulating conversation. His romantic ambitions lie, much more reasonably, in the direction of the quiet and refined charms of the pastor's daughter. An ignorant hill girl in a shabby dress and sagging stockings holds no interest for him. Nothing on earth could ever bring those two together. Never underestimate the power of a pair of garters...