ALASKA BRIDE ON THE RUN lived up to the promise of what I imagined life would be like in Alaska during the time of the gold rush when the area was booming and settlers were pouring in.

This review maybe a little biased, because I love books set in this area during this timeframe. Kudos to Harlequin for not publishing another historical set in England! Besides, don't tell me I was the only one who became addicted to that computer game where you traveled up to Alaska, talked to Jack London, tried to find gold, and also tried not to get all your money stolen in Skagway before winter set in? I loved that game, wonder what happened to it.

Anyhoo, tired of living her life as an unpaid maid and servant to her uncle and older brothers in Wyoming, Willa Somerset runs away to Alaska where she believes she'll find a better life where woman have more opportunities. What she finds is that she's forced into marriage with Skagway's town butcher, a man who is not as an upstanding citizen as the town believes. So she runs again and ends of in Eagle's Cliff and in the tavern of Harrison Rowlan.

After finally clearing his name and reputation from a crime he did not commit, the last thing Harrison wants is more trouble, but he finds it impossible to turn away a woman in obvious distress even through he knows she's not telling him the whole truth about her past and why she's running. He hires her as his bartender, and as the locals swarm to his bar to get an eyeful of the beautiful bartender, he finds himself drawing closer to her as well.

I loved the history and the vivid writing of ALASKA BRIDE ON THE RUN. I felt like I was really there. Willa and Harrison were great three-dimensional characters and I enjoyed the slow build up of sexual tension between them.

The villain aspect of the story, while a little heavy-handed, was also well done and didn't play out exactly as I expected. However, to tell you more on my feelings on that would reveal too many plot spoilers.

The only thing that drove me batty about the book was the jarring POV shifts. You would be in one person's POV and then you'd jump to another person's POV. It was pretty obvious. Very obvious. You would be in Willa's POV and then in the next paragraph you'd be in Harrison's and it would be several days later. I also had some issues with continuity. There was one scene when Willa was being set upon by some of the local women wanting advice from her on getting raises from their boss's like she did with Harrison and she's not talking to them. She's looking at Harrison talking to another woman. I know that may not seem like a big thing, but it's hard to describe. Willa's not thinking, oh, these girls are talking to me, it's hard to pay attention to what they're saying when Harrison's over there. She's just looking at Harrison with the woman and it's like they were never there and it's a whole different scene. I know I'm not articulating how weird/off-putting this was, but there isn't another way I can explain it. It totally threw me out of the story.

Despite these issues, I was satisfied with ALASKA BRIDE ON THE RUN. The reason I gave it the mark that I did, is because I had an e-copy of ALASKIA BRIDE ON THE RUN and I didn't know if those really, really jarring POV breaks were a result of a formatting issue I had with my e-reading device. If it was the e-reading device's fault, which I hope it was because they were pretty obvious, I'll stick with my 8. If it wasn't I'd rate this a 7.

I'd never read anything by this author, but I'd check her out again and go to the store and see if I can find that computer game in the dollar bin or something! ~ Lynette