Customer Reviews

Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I picked up this book at a museum bookstore in Arizona last December. I'm not usually one to read non-fiction, but I found this to be fascinating from the start. It hit home, too, when I read The Benton Brides which starts off in Ellicott City, Maryland. I live in Ellicott City and could envision it all very clearly which made the book all that much more real and special. It's very well written and a great book to learn about life during the pioneer days of the 1800's. I highly recommend it to everyone!

I purchased this book out of interest in the subject of mail order brides. The stories in the book are interesting and entertaining, and are often better than fiction. I highly recommend the book!

As a western history buff, I have found few authors that really get to the heart of the matter like this one has. This is a rare historically accurate work that is easy and fun to read. I will be buying more of her books and I highly recommend this one to you.

Interesting, but a little thin. I expected more, but perhaps this is due to the fact that not more info is available; or is it that this is just a brief compilation of facts gathered from more complete sources? If so, I would rather have read the originals.

Chris Enss has done it again! Wonderful look at history. Her books are always a delight to read. Gets you hooked from the beginning. Great gift for a history buff in your life.

I enjoyed this book very much and read bits to my husband. he found it so interesting and he read it also. Well worth buying. We have no idea how difficult it must have been for these women to travel to areas unknown to meet men they knew little about. The stories give a little insight into the life of a mail-order bride.

As I researched to write my mail-order bride historical romance series, I came across "Hearts West." I was very impressed with the detail, the photographs, and the research involved in this book. It was very fascinating and brought to life, as Miss Enss puts it, the "True stories of mail-order brides on the frontier."

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in this topic. Yes, it is a small book, but well worth the read.

Reviewed by Penny Zeller, author of the historical romance novel "McKenzie."

THis is an excellent read for those who may be writting stories on Mail order brides.And for those of you who just like history too.Though all her tales are hardly fairy,they are real.You feel compassion for these women who were our forebarers.The book is laid out well and very informative.The sentiment of these stories is very touching.I very much recomend this for any history or womens history lover!

This is an excellent book of short stories. There are a lot of interesting tidbits included that even history buffs will find new and interesting.

First Line: The promise of boundless acres of land in the West lured hundreds of men away from farms, businesses, and homes in the eastern states as tales of early explorers and fur trappers filtered back from the frontier.

When all those men wound up on the frontier working gold claims, building businesses, and starting farms and ranches, the one thing that was in very short supply was women. It wasn't long until weekly newspapers like the Matrimonial News began circulation in an attempt to match men and women in marital bliss.

The strength in Hearts West lies in the stories of the mail-order brides as they came west to start new lives with total strangers. Some lucky couples found their soul mates. Some found the exact opposite, as in the story of the unlucky young woman who discovered the man she'd come hundreds of miles to marry was one of the men who'd just robbed the stagecoach on which she was traveling.

I've loved reading this author's books in the past, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. There weren't enough actual stories of the mail-order brides and the men they married. There were way too many ads from the Matrimonial News-- to the point where they felt like filler instead of a glimpse into the precursor of online dating. Worst of all, the book needed much closer editing. One chapter had me grinding my teeth due to the nautical errors. (The type of ship referred to is a "scow" not a "scowl"; and a ship only has one "bow"-- not multiple "boughs".) Add those errors to the one in which the character was wearing a skirt that wasn't going to be designed for another sixty years, and I almost stopped reading the book.

However, it's a small book, and I would have missed some excellent history about the brave women who traveled hundreds and thousands of miles to make new lives for themselves.