Are you familiar with the children’s book Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan? In it, Sarah answers an ad to become the wife of a widower and mother to his two children. She asks for a trial period and will make her decision whether or not to marry him after that time. It is a simple, gentle book about the widower’s family wanting so much for Sarah to accept them. When Hallmark made a movie of the book, they ruined it by making Sarah the one to have to prove herself to the family (a change which I found offensive). What does this have to do with Springwater Seasons: Miranda? At first, I thought that this book might just be like that movie, and it was, for just a few pages, until the focus changed. All in all, the book is about two people who start off suddenly as a married couple and then learn about each other in a gentle way while life goes on around them, with a little plot-moving suspense thrown in.

When widower Landry Kildare came to ask Miranda to marry him, she couldn’t believe her good fortune. With an illegitimate infant son and no fortune to offer, she jumped at Landry’s proposal, even though she knew he wanted nothing more than someone to help him with the farm and the raising of his two sons. Before she could blink she was married, packed and on her way to his pig farm with her baby, listening to Landry explain that he loved his first wife (who had died five years ago). His heart was taken, he said, but he would promise to be a good husband.

What makes this book special is not the two lead characters, who are very likable but unremarkable, but its depiction of farm life in continuous motion while Landry and Miranda are learning about each other. Biscuits are being baked, the fire is being tended, the hogs are getting slaughtered (a detail that is actually handled quite tastefully) – and life is going on as it should be. Ms. Miller obviously did her research and is quite comfortable with the time period. The language is simple and has that feel of the early American west.

There was really not much not to like about the book. The only thing I would complain about is that sometimes events were a bit abrupt, due to the nature of length constraints of writing a short historical romance. I also think the author could have gone into a little more detail about her re-occurring characters. Since this is the first in the series that I have read, I didn’t know a few of the characters from Adam, and a little more detail about the main characters’ backgrounds would have helped matters.

Springwater Seasons: Miranda has a Little House on the Prairie feel to it. I liked the simplicity and the people. I liked reading an American historical set in the West without cowboys, gunfights, and whorehouses. If you’ve grown out of books like Sarah, Plain and Tall but not out of reading about a simpler time, Springwater Seasons may be the series for you.