Customer Reviews

The Wives of Bowie Stone

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Virtually every romance novel involves the couple overcoming one or two obstacles in the path to love and happiness. Many authors can't even overcome those obstacles in a way that flows. The obstacles in this book are numerous. Rosie is a victim of years of sexual abuse at the hands of her dead step-father and has responded by becoming an active alcoholic who dresses like a man and won't look in mirror. She needs hand to reach her goal of making her farm pay (revenge on the step-father). Her county has a law that a man can be saved from the gallows if he marries a woman from the county. Enter Bowie - dishonorably discharged Army captain and convicted murderer. He chooses marriage over death -- conveniently forgetting his wife in name only, Susan.

2/3's of the book is the story of Rosie and Bowie as he clears his name and guides Rosie out of her nightmare. He's helps by some great side characters. 1/3 of the book is the story of Susan. Bowie assumed she was safe in Washington DC. It turns out that she's been disinherited and goes to Wyoming as a mail order bride only to be rejected because she has a son.

Many authors would have made a total wreck out of such a mass of complications. Osborne works her way through with skill and tenderness. It's not a perfect book. Bowie's a bit too good to be true. And it didn't move me to tears. Still, it's a much better than average read. And the critics agree with me. The book was chosen by Romantic Times as one of the 200 best books of the last two decades. Likewise, The Romance Reader's reader's poll chose it as one of the 100 best books in the history of romance novels.

At one point in this novel I was crying so hard that I could no longer see the page. It is heart wrenching and very emotional. Make sure you have a box of tissues handy and maybe even a finger of whiskey (so you can toast Rosie's accomplishments).

The novel is actually two stories in one. It is about two vastly different women who must each overcome hardships and trauma on the road to self-awareness and self-respect. One of the heroines is Rosie Mulvehey, who saves Bowie Stone from the hangman's noose by selecting him to be her husband. In exchange for his life, Bowie agrees to help Rosie plant and harvest her crop on a dusty Kansas farm. With Bowie's help, Rosie is able to face the demons of her past and overcome the hardships of the present. The second heroine is Susan Stone who, along with her young son, is abruptly evicted from her opulent Washington D.C. home. Without friends, family or money, Susan is forced to answer a want ad for a mail-order bride. She travels cross-country to Wyoming, only to be rejected by her waiting husband-to-be. She quickly learns that she must face the world head-on if she and her son are to survive.

I really enjoyed this novel it was well written, face paced and a real tearjerker. The only reason that I did not give it a "Five" is that I found the finale with Rosie and Bowie a little short.

I read perhaps 3 romance novels a week by a number of authors. This is BY FAR the best book I have read in my many years of reading. Thank you Maggie Osborne. You have given me characters that will live on in my mind long after this book has been put on the shelf.

I have read this book twice and will read it again at some point because I think it's brilliant. Maggie Osborne (who also writes as Margaret St. George) is always great at humor and emotional depth -- a mix which few writers can handle. It's a profoundly moving story of a woman who dresses and drinks like a cowboy and marries a man to keep him from being hanged so she can have a free ranch hand. That's just the first few pages -- the rest of the story is unforgettably poignant.

I could have kept reading this story for another 500 pages it was so wonderfully written. I have so much admiration for Ms. Osborne, she has such a colorful writing style, I was living right on the ranch with the characters, I loved the hedgehog and poking. This is a totally great story and I wish I were just starting so I could experience it for the first time all over again.

Bowie is going to be hung, that is unless he agrees to marry. Rosie is desperate for some help on her farm, even if she has to marry it. Rosie has to make her farm profitable because she swore an oath to her dead stepfather whom she hates and who abused her. She is an extremely damaged person who drinks to forget her pain and doesn't expect to ever trust a man again.

Spoiler alert:
The whole time Bowie is with Rosie, married to her, making her care about him, getting her to change herself for him, he is also married to someone else and planning to leave asap. Of course there is a rationalization about all that, why he has to be with wife #1 and has to leave wife #2, but in my mind what he did to her was cruel. I could understand why he would marry her and plan to leave her, being marrying her was the only way to save his life. But I could not forgive him for sleeping with her, "courting her", making her love him without ever telling her the truth. He should have told her he was already married the minute he suspected she might care for him at all. If we are supposed to believe he is a gentlemen, that is what he would do. But he has to go back to take care of wife #1's child, even when wife #2 could in fact be pregnant with his child. Plus his marriage is only legal to wife #2, being he supposedly never slept with wife #1.

I couldn't forgive him and wouldn't have taken him back and I have to say that if Rosie was being true to her character she wouldn't have either, she was far to damaged to ever trust again after her trust was betrayed in such a callous manner. Not only that but the ONLY reason he came back is because wife #1 fell in love with someone else and the child died, not because he wouldn't have stayed with her. Bowie might think he is honorable because of how he treated wife #1, but he was utterly dishonorable with how he treated wife #2.

As you can see the ending ruined it for me. Call me unforgiving but if a man is going to pull this crap on you once, what the heck is he going to pull next time?

2 stars.

I just love this books! I can't say enough good things about it. This is a novel for people who want to read something different and still romantic. In this novel, the heroine, Rosie, is the one who is suffering the most and needs the most help and she gets that from Bowie. Instead of the hero taking center stage, rosie does. You can't help, but feel for her and she just comes alive in the book. Rosie is strong yet hurting and Bowie is the one to come along and help her stop hurting herself. So far this is my favorite Maggie Osborne book and one of my all time favorite bks. You will not be able to stop reading this bk. once you get started so I recommend you relax and start reading this bk.

This book was a fast and easy read. Ms. Osborne definitely knows how to tug the heart strings. She writes of two very different women and makes them into characters you come to really like and care about. I gave it four stars instead of five because there seemed to be a couple of places where it became a bit repetetive. This is only the third book of Ms. Osborne's that I have read and I look forward to reading many more.

3 1/2*s

This is not one of my favorite Osborne books. My favorites to date are "I do, I do, I do", "A Stranger's Wife", "The Promise of Jenny Jones" and "The Bride of Willow Creek".

"The Wives of Bowie Stone" takes the reader on an emotional journey back in time to 1880. Each of the main characters (4) has so much to overcome in their path to growth that sometimes I got frustrated during that journey with their constant frailties. Osborne also sets Bowie up as a fine upstanding man, so much so that he defies military orders to do the right thing, only to receive a dishonorable discharge. But if he were so honest, why did he wait so long to tell the second Mrs. Stone about the first Mrs. Stone. Given the situation, it made sense for him to wait a while, but I felt he should have informed her before he slept with her.

Other than a few criticisms, I still think Osborne offers a unique perspective on the past and her stories are always interesting. At times while reading I wanted to laugh, cry, and pull my hair out.

Happy reading!

After reading romance novels for the better part of twenty years, I was skeptical after reading all the great reviews of The Wives of Bowie Stone . After reading this novel, I am on the band wagon that this is one of the most well written, entertaining, unique, interestingly developed novels in the genera. This author writes real characters that make mistakes and have lived challanging lives, they arent always pretty, but they are endearing. For all their flawed actions you just want them to find a way to happiness and the way Ms. Osborne addresses alcoholism and sexual abuse is really well done and not offensive. Read this and you will immediately want to buy another of this authors novels