FOR THE ROSES

Romance winner from veteran Garwood (Prince Charming, 1994, etc.) with another entry in her string of Montana historicals. Back east in the New York City of 1860, four homeless boys--Adam, Douglas, Travis, and Cole--find baby Mary Rose abandoned in an alley's trash and form a family to protect her. Wise and noble Adam--the oldest at almost 14, a runaway slave who killed his drunken, wife-beating owner--is elected head of the gang as the four decide to take themselves and their charge to Montana, where folks don't ask a lot of questions. The Lord is good to the little brood. They build a simple but lovely two-story house, designed by brother Cole, the gun-totin' hothead with the heart of gold; they start a livestock business (Douglas is a whiz with animals); they teach themselves French, learning a new word each day; and they study the religions of the world. Adam also teaches little Mary Rose to play the piano, and the whole crew does well enough to send her to boarding school in St. Louis. There, she's spotted by an acquaintance of one Lord Elliott, whose daughter was kidnapped 19 years earlier in New York City. And so handsome Scottish lawyer Harrison MacDonald, Earl of Stanford, comes to Blue Belle, Montana, to see whether the outspoken but good-hearted Mary Rose is really long-lost Lady Victoria. He stays to fall in love with her and the whole Montana Territory, as well as to defend Adam against murder charges, then to bring his new wife back to England to meet her dad. The Victorian lifestyle proves too much for Mary Rose's free Western spirit, however, and she returns to her brothers, with Harrison sailing right behind .... Sugary page-turner filled with lots of family values and some fairly explicit sex between married lovers. The heroine is always protected by big, paternal fellas--and the reader is never out of Garwood's skillful comfort zone.