Sometimes I’m just in the market for a good, solid comfort read. Even if the story has its rough points, there are some days when I just want to read a good happy ending that I can believe in. The Outlaw Bride delivers such a read, and I’m so glad I found it.

The book opens with Katherine Slade feeling lost. She has run away from her husband Rogan, but he is about to find her and she doesn’t know what to do. Suddenly salvation comes along in the form of a chaperone grabbing her by the arm and hustling her onto a train bound for the town of Fatal Bluff. Katherine has been mistaken for one Hannah Stockdale, a mail-order bride.

Given her circumstances, Katherine goes along with things until she gets to Fatal Bluff and meets her intended. Even in her desperation, she cannot go along with marrying the rough mountain man chosen for her and an altercation ensues that requires Sheriff Connor Langston to intervene. Between the shock of the trip and the sheriff’s intervention, Katherine is quite overcome. The couple that brought her to Fatal Bluff want a refund since she didn’t marry the man chosen for her, and eventually Connor is convinced to take her home as a housekeeper so she can work off her debt.

Naturally, some of the townspeople want Connor to marry Katherine, but he’s been burned in the past and has no interest in marriage. He simply concentrates on being sheriff and raising troubled eight-year-old Jenny. Things are tense in the Langston house at first as Connor tries to keep his distance as well as keeping his secrets. And naturally, readers will know that Katherine has a few secrets of her own – including her real name and her connection to Connor’s family. Even so, the two are obviously attracted to one another and as they settle into a family-style routine, they start to fall for one another. The two are both deeply wary and yet very likable characters, and they’re good for one another.

Given their circumstances, Katherine and Connor do not have an easy road to their happily ever after and, while the author’s voice has a light touch, she still doesn’t give them an easy way out. There are a few cliched scenes in the book as well as an evil, no good, very bad villain, but The Outlaw Bride is above all an entertaining and solid read.