Tried and True by Mary Connealy

Saddle up for a wildly fun ride with the Wilde sisters!

Kylie Wilde is the youngest sister—and the most civilized. Her older sisters might be happy dressing in trousers and posing as men, but Kylie has grown her hair long and wears skirts every chance she gets. It’s a risk—they are homesteading using the special exemptions they earned serving in the Civil War as “boys”—but Kylie plans to make the most of the years before she can sell her property and return to the luxuries of life back East.

Local land agent Aaron Masterson is fascinated with Kylie from the moment her long hair falls from her cap. But now that he knows her secret, can he in good conscience defraud the U.S. government? And when someone tries to force Kylie off her land, does he have any hope of convincing her that marrying him and settling on the frontier is the better option for her future?

Mary Connealy knows how to write clean western romances.  I love reading her books.  

The characters in this book are so well done.  I felt like I knew them and everything played out just like a movie in my head.  The beginning chapter with the roof scene when on too long and I was really glad when things finally got moving but from there on out, it was the perfect distracting read.

I love Kylie.  It was so nice to read about a girl who really just wanted to be a girl- completely feminine with pretty dresses.  So many books today have tough girl characters who can take anyone down.  Don't get me wrong, because I do like that too, but it was just refreshing to read a book about a girl who isn't so concerned about how tough she is.  Kylie wants a home where she cooks and cleans and takes care of a family.  She doesn't want to do "man chores".  She wants to be taken care of by a big, strong man.  It was kind of funny sometimes but endearing too.  Because Kylie spent a lot of time posing as a boy in order to serve in the army during the civil war, she is desperate to put that behind her and look and act like a girl again.  Can you blame her?  

She finds the perfect man in Aaron because all he wants to do is protect and love Kylie.  He wants to do all the "man chores".  See what I mean?  Perfect for Kylie.  

This is what I would call inspirational fiction.  God is mentioned and sometimes talked about but not in an overbearing or overly religious way.  This book is squeaky clean- yay!  I'm looking forward to the next books in this series.  This book set up the stories for the sisters perfectly and now I'm anxious to get reading them!

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