The Wedding Raffle

Honor Duvall is a woman with great beauty, an independent spirit, three dead husbands, two stepsons, a mother-in-law and a reputation. What she doesn't have is money. In order to get some, she holds a raffle for her horse. But when Texas ranger Luke Prescott shows up to claim his prize, it turns out there is a hitch--the horse is dead. Despite this inauspicious beginning, Luke agrees to protect Honor and her family against her scurrilous politician father, who is trying to force her to marry a British lordling. For Luke, it's a way to assuage the guilt he feels over his absence at the Alamo, where his compatriots died, and the flight from Santa Anna called the Runaway Scrape that claimed his family. Honor has many skeletons in her closet--and they emerge with dismaying regularity. But Dawson's (Tempting Morality) dialogue is smart and fast-paced; her history is right on without being intrusive (at least until Sam Houston pays a visit) and Honor, Luke, her stepsons and, particularly, her mother-in-law, Luella, are great characters, funny, earthy and brave. (Nov.)