A Sweet Misfortune by Maggie Brendan

Have you ever lost something that you really needed and you look and look but it is nowhere to be found , but the second that you stop looking for it you find it in the most obvious place?
That is what happened with this book. I thought that I put it on the shelf but when I went to read it, It had disappeared!  After searching my room for it all day, my sister discovered it pushed to the back with the pages toward the front. It was on the book shelf the whole time! I just overlooked it.  Isn't that how life is sometimes? We look everywhere for God's blessings and we never find them but if we stop looking and just sit back then we see his blessings all around us. Our families, job, friends, Church even our food is a blessing. Well anyway I just finished reading my latest must read book called  A Sweet Misfortune by Maggie Brendan. It is the story of Rachel Matthews a homeless girl who has taken a job as a "dance girl" at a Saloon and  John McIntyre who is a Cattle baron. When John gets a letter from his best friend Preston saying that his sister Rachel is in trouble, John sets out to rescue the damsel in distress. However his rescue efforts were almost ruined when he picks up the wrong girl. Finally when John locates Rachel he takes her to his home to live with his Grandmother and himself until she can find somewhere to live . Despite her protests about the way that John "saved" her she is grateful that he wanted to help her even though she is a stranger and finds herself blessed to have a place to live and to be away from that horrible place. She never was comprised or taken advantage  of at the Saloon but it was getting worse and worse to be there every time she came in.  Grandmother Estelle knows that Rachel was sent by God to be the answer to her prayers. Finally if her grandson John can open his eyes, he will see that Rachel is the perfect girl for him to marry, but she is worried that his greed for land and cattle will blind him to what is right in front of him. What follows is craziness. Rachel gets a job at Grandmother Estelle's shop where she has to handle some difficult customer's such as Vera and Bernice Spencer who are rich and spoiled.  John is trying to buy more land and get his cattle herds to grow. Everything seems to be going well until sickness strikes both John and his Grandmother Estelle. With everything on the balance will John survive the severe case of pneumonia he contracted? Or will he finally realize that his treasures should not be stored here but in heaven.  Guess you will have to read the book to find out!


So what did I think about the book? 
I thought that the book was so sweet!  The characters John and Rachel are great. Rachel is very self reliant and does not want to let anyone help her , but she finally learns to trust people again and John is a little greedy, Which was not a bad thing but all he cares about was getting more land and more cattle. But Rachel helped John to see that there are more things in life then wealth or land and John and his Grandmother Estelle show Rachel that even though her family is gone,  God was still there and he cared what happens  to her
The book did not have much action  but the plot and the storyline was enough to keep you engaged in the story until the very end.   It is the second book in the Virtues and Vices of the Old West series but I read it as a stand alone.  Overall I give the book 5 0ut of 5 Stars.  *****



Don't forget to check out some of her other books, I have read a few and they are great! 
http://maggiebrendan.blogspot.com/p/books.html 


Happy Reading :)


I would like to thank Revell , A division of Baker Publishing Group for allowing me to review this book in exchange for a free copy, I was not required to write a favorable review, just an honest one.