Maura and Calhoun better number 1 are wonderful. The setting is so realistic and described so well, you feel as if you are there. The characters are unique and beautifully created that you want then to be a part of your life. Wonderful book and beautiful story, easily 10/10.

I just reviewed Winning Maura's Heart by Linda Broday. #WinningMaurasHeart #NetGalley

Unexpected Love

Author Linda Brody entwines fact and legends into a rip-roaring story that will capture your heart. It is mildly steamy, but deals with much of the human condition, focusing on rescuing those who have been thrown out, like orphans and people considered undesirable--such as a hangman's daughter. (First in a series but standalone.) Enjoy!

Linda Broday's Winning Maura's Heart (Severn House 2023), Book 1 in the Hangman's Daughters, is an old west romance with all the pride, respect, chivalry, and challenge of life and love in the American West in the second half of the 1800's. Maura Taggart is a twenty-something older sister struggling to take care of a younger also-twenty-something sister in a world that has dealt them nothing but jokers. Their mother died when they were too young. While their father the Hangman remains alive, he is always absent from their lives, leaving them to survive on their own wits and wiles, and with the reputation as the Hangman's daughters, a slanderous designation that causes all respectable people to snub them and the disrespectable to try to take advantage of them. It is left to Maura to find a way to provide for them while maintaining the values impressed upon them by their mother.

When cholera strikes their hometown, the sisters do what they can for the sick and when the town rejects them for their questionable past, they take responsibility for the care of a wagon load of homeless orphans whose parents died of disease. No one wants the children or the sisters which might be why Maura can’t let them go. Through a stroke of luck, they end up in an abandoned mission that is also the home of their alcoholic Uncle Max and three French nuns who came to America to save souls. This unlikely group of outcasts becomes an orphanage with little hope of surviving but that seems to have anonymous supporters that allow it to limp along. When an almost dead gunslinger falls into yard, they don't know if he's an outlaw or a US Marshall, but it doesn't matter. They must take care of him. His arrival seems the catalyst for a whole lot of activity that can save or sink the orphanage.

Want to see how this turns out? You’ll have to read the book. You won’t be sorry.

I loved this book! This was an amazing story about people who overcame adversity with a strength that enabled them to face anything that came their way. I loved the way Broday developed the characters in the story. I also liked the adventures that were brought into the story by one of the main characters. She also did a great job of allowing the reader to see into the heart of the characters as they grew and became the person that they needed to be. If you like westerns and romances then this is the book for you. This story is also the first book in the series and I can't wait to read more books by this author and in this series.


Thanks to Net Galley and Dragonblade Publishing for the reader's galley in return for an honest review of this book.

Outstanding western romance. One of Linda Broday’s best. A look at two sisters who are the hangman’s daughters. Outcasts in western society. Every character is described to imagine how life was back in the west. Hope you enjoy as much as did.

“There was a great deal to be said for grabbing every second of life and finding joy.”

Linda Broday has taken a few historical facts and crafted a stellar beginning to what is definitely a must-read new fictional series. How does Linda keep delivering such fantastic romantic westerns time after time? I haven’t a clue, but I hope she never stops!

Winning Maura’s Heart by Linda Broday is the first book in The Hangman’s Daughters Series. This story starts off with a yellow fever epidemic in San Antonio, Texas, in 1867 and then progresses quickly into a wild chase, flying bullets, bags of money from a bank heist, and identical twin brothers running for their lives: Jonas and Cutter Calhoun―one an outlaw and one a lawman.

Twenty-eight-year-old Maura Taggert and her younger sister, Emma, are daughters of an infamous hangman, Lucius Taggart, and by association, they are just as despised and shunned as their father. But the sisters are used to being outcasts and relying on only themselves for companionship. When the mayor of San Antonio unceremoniously demands they hightail it out of town, Maura and Emma leave and take the many unwanted children who became orphans after the yellow fever stole their parents and their future. The sisters and the children find refuge with some sweet nuns in a nearby Spanish mission, discovering that their drunkard Uncle Max has been residing at the mission as well. When Maura stumbles upon the almost lifeless bullet-riddled body of a handsome man near the mission, the story takes off with a vengeance.

One Calhoun brother is recovering from bullet wounds at the mission, and the other brother is missing and presumed dead, but did Maura rescue the lawman or the outlaw? Linda Broday does an excellent job keeping everyone in suspense, with many clues along the way pointing to both brothers. Either way, this Calhoun brother is a keeper because no one at the mission can apparently resist his charms, especially Maura.

At the heart of Winning Maura’s Heart is acceptance, kindness, and purpose, with the well-developed characters showing that age-old duality of humanity: good and evil. And while evil often appears to have gained the upper hand, good eventually prevails but not without hardship, doubt, and a gang of outlaws determined to recover the stolen loot and whatever treasures the mission hides. The pacing is naturally quick because the action never really lets up, which means you will reach the end way too soon. Good thing more of this thrilling series is on the way!

Love in Winning Maura’s Heart comes in many forms: family; friendship; and, of course, courtly romance. Respect for human life and second chances are other major themes here, juxtaposed nicely with the narrow-minded townspeople in San Antonio and a few other bad actors all portraying just the opposite. If you like your westerns laden with treasure, romance, highly electric action, a handsome man with secrets, rescued children who will steal your heart, a puppy named Gunner, and many other dynamic characters (Uncle Max is my personal favorite), then Winning Maura’s Heart is the book for you.

A super sweet western romance between the hangman's daughter and man who isn't telling Maura his full story. With a feisty uncle, a trio of nuns and a dozen or more loveable orphans, Maura will win your heart as well!

So I was looking on my kindle trying to find something to read and realized I forgot to do this ARC. So I started it yesterday and I took all day today to try and figure out how I feel about it. I love Linda Broday, and I really enjoy early America/western HR. This one was really good for the most part, but I was pretty disappointed about one thing. I loved Maura and Emma Taggart. I loved the nuns and the children. I loved Uncle Max, and Calhoun too. Hell I even liked Maura's dad the Hangman. I liked Maura and Calhoun relationship a lot. There was a lot of build up to their love and the connection was good, but I have to be honest I think I wanted Calhoun to be the other brother. I don't know why I feel that way but I do. Like I said I liked Calhoun the whole book so I don't know why I was so disappointed at which brother Calhoun was. Other than that the only other thing I didn't care for in this book, and it's a small thing, was that Calhoun kept calling Maura Lady. Not to be mean or anything and I'm sure that was common back then but I would have liked something a little more sweet. Still I thought the plot was really good. The relationships were sweet. I loved all the children and how the adults really loved and helped them. Overall I loved the book and I can't wait to read Emma's.

I don't read a lot of historical romance, but this book was sent to me for review and I gave it a chance. Winning Maura's Heart is a lovely, poignant story, and didn't feel formulaic at all. As a former resident of the Lone Star State, I appreciated the Texas setting. Great characters, plausible story, realistic romance.

Winning Maura’s Heart is a terrific first book in a new series by Linda Broday. Billed as a Western Romance, I really liked that the Western elements took center stage. Not that there isn’t romance. The attraction between the stranger and Maura builds slowly, letting the reader get to know both of them as the story evolves.

The mystery of which brother survived the shoot-out is deftly handled, and there were enough clues dropped into the story to keep the reader guessing. There were times I wondered, “Really? Could it be?” It’s hard to say any more about the romantic elements without a spoiler, but readers will find the resolution most satisfying.

Maura and her sister have had a hard life up to this point, and it gets worse right after they’ve nursed people through an outbreak of yellow fever in San Antonio, Texas. No longer needed for a job nobody else wanted, the townspeople drive Maura and Emma out of town, and they take a group of children orphaned by the epidemic to an old Spanish mission now being used by French nuns. The Sisters welcome the children and help Maura and Emma care for them, with the assistance of their Uncle Max when he is sober enough. Max is drinking to try to forget his own problems, but he does have a good side, which Maura recognizes and attempts to foster.

Winning Maura’s Heart starts with an emotional hook that doesn’t let go as the story evolves. The two sisters face intense cruelty at the hands of others and so many challenges as they attempt to hold their band of children together. All of the characters are deftly drawn and so likeable. Well, except for the gang members who come looking for the loot that the brothers stole from them.

This is a story of grit and determination, as well as faith and compassion. Even though life has been so hard for Maura and Emma, they don’t let that harden their hearts. They are always willing to help those in need, and the reader knows that from the opening of the story when they are in the throes of the epidemic. Then we meet the Calhoun brothers in an action-packed attempt to get Jonah out of the gang, and we think both brothers are dead until Maura finds the dying man near the mission and nurses him back to health.

The plot flows from one element to another seamlessly and so many parts of the book reminded me of my favorite Westerns from Zane Grey and others who’ve penned great novels about the Old West. Broday definitely knows the genre and does detailed research to bring the mid-1800s alive. I highly recommend the read.

For some reason I find this an interesting depart from Mrs. Broday's usual writing. To me it just feels different, but not in a bad way. The characters are interesting with a bit of quirky. The story is fabulous with some interesting turns. I look forward to the next one.

From the incredibly evocative first page, Winning Maura’s Heart grabbed my attention and my heart and didn’t let go until the tenderly sweet ending. This story of outcast sisters, abandoned children, an unforgiving society, and morally ambiguous men had me tearing up in parts and once again admiring Ms. Broday’s remarkable writing prowess. She is an auto-read for me whenever I get a hankering for a good old-school Western romance.

"You’ll never get anywhere by sitting down and giving up.”

Maura Taggart joins the long list of Ms. Broday’s amazingly stalwart heroines. Along with her sister Emma, she somehow survived being driven out of San Antonio by ungrateful citizens while taking care of more than a dozen orphaned children armed only with her indomitable will, innate kindness, and unshakeable faith in a higher power. In saving a half-dead man, an abused child, an alcoholic uncle, and many lives, she is the embodiment of a true heroine.

By contrast, Calhoun is not a clear-cut hero. There is a mystery surrounding his real identity and he exists in the gray area between bad and good. I really appreciate how Linda wrote him as well as Max Taggart. Both men earned redemption through their actions. Such is the power of love.

"New life was born from hopeless despair.”

Nothing symbolizes love more than children. In this story, they provided both touching moments and funny scenes. They supplied the light to balance the heavy and dark threats of violence and abuse.

Indeed, Ms. Broday penned another action-packed and adventuresome novel that also taught me something new (hint: spiderweb) while satisfying my romance-loving heart. Her talent is so extraordinary, I’m willing to accept the improbabilities that happened in the story to bring about a happy-ever-after.

Back to the old west filled with outlaws, hangmen, and seemingly little law and order. But in Linda Broday’s vision we get to investigate the lives of some folk that are down on their luck and victims of their circumstances. We meet nuns that are just trying to survive and bring a sense of peace and faith into what was still a rather rough around the edges land. Most of all there are little peeks into historical rumors and innuendo mixed in just for fun. WINNING MAURA’S HEART is a gem by Linda Broday, a real diamond in the rough with a healthy dose of love mixed in for good measure.

Life has been hard and unfair for Maura and her sister Emma. They are the daughters of the hangman which made them untouchables in their own town. Strange since he is doing their bidding in getting rid of outlaws. But the townsfolk are small-minded bigots and spare no regard for the hangman’s family.
They literally run these young women out of town.

So Maura and Emma find themselves in an old Spanish Mission outside of San Antonia with a few nuns and their father’s brother, Uncle Max, and several orphans. With no money or supplies they need to be resourceful, lucky and a few of gods blessings would surely be appreciated.

Maura comes upon an injured man. Of course she feels the right thing is to help and brings him into their odd little group, of dare we say survivors.

WINNING MAURA’S HEART is a true adventure that plays out like an old western movie with lots of action, danger, challenges, and complicated relationships. Typical Linda Broday with a strong intelligent heroine and a rough around the edges hero. Even the orphans get their time in the action. Well-orchestrated and fun WINNING MAURA’S HEART is guaranteed to win this talented author lots of new fans. You get an interesting glimpse into what living in the old days was really like.

Maura and Emma Taggart have selflessly cared for victims of yellow fever in San Antonio, Texas. Now that the worst of the threat is past, the fine, upstanding citizens of San Antonio repay them by assaulting Emma and running the sisters out of town. Why? Because they’re the hangman’s daughters. Their father’s profession and reputation has made them pariahs wherever they go. They leave with a group of children orphaned by the epidemic, planning to care for them. The ragtag group finds a haven at an old mission outside of town, where three French nuns and Maura’s alcoholic Uncle Max currently reside.
Cutter Calhoun sets out to rescue his brother Jonas from the clutches of a notorious gang. They’re almost free when Jonas decides to go back for a stash of stolen loot. As they’re fleeing from the gang, one brother is killed and the other is seriously wounded. Maura finds Calhoun when she’s out hunting for food for her charges, and brings him back to the mission to nurse him to health – but which brother has she found?

Linda Broday masterfully weaves multiple story arcs together into a fantastic whole. We have Maura and Emma’s struggles with the burden of their father’s reputation, their care for the orphaned children, Maura’s efforts to help Uncle Max find redemption and recovery, and the mystery man Calhoun.

The French nuns are a lot of fun. They are able to communicate with Maura and Emma, but they have no problems playing up their difficulties with the English language when it will benefit their cause! They see God’s hand at work in everything, big and small, and they’re a treat. The orphaned children are by turns delightful, heart-wrenching, and occasionally exasperating (as children are). They come together to make a marvelous family where there was none before. Max, at first afraid to be too near the children because of his tendency to drink heavily, comes to love them, and they love him, too.

The romance between Maura and Calhoun is an important part of the story, but it isn’t all of the story. Broday kept me guessing as to which brother Maura had saved. Sometimes the evidence pointed to US marshal Cutter, and sometimes it pointed to erstwhile outlaw Jonas. I’m not going to tell you which brother survives – read the book if you want to know that. I will tell you that the romance isn’t insta, but it’s not exactly slow burn, either. The spark flares pretty quickly, and Maura had long given up on the idea that any man could look past her family association and see – and love – her. She sees a good man in Calhoun, whichever one he is, and even though he’s likely to move on when he heals, she wants to know love for as long as it’s in her grasp. Even with the mystery of Calhoun’s identity unsolved, I found myself cheering for them, wanting their relationship to last.

Lucius Taggart shows up, unannounced and uninvited, and he’s brusque and fairly awful to Maura and Emma. I saw glimmers of hope that there may be a redemption for Lucius in a future book, at least as far as his family is concerned, if not society. I hope so! The outlaw gang makes several menacing appearances, trying to reclaim what Calhoun stole from them (which, ironically, they stole from others). And Maura not only works to keep her young charges cared for, she jumps in to correct an injustice, even though it means going back to the town that shunned her and her sister.

This story hits everything I enjoy in a good book. Mystery. Romance. Action. Found family. Redemption. And it places it all in a marvelous historical setting, when Texas was still the Wild West. Linda Broday has done an excellent job of researching her story and bringing all the threads together into a well-written whole. I can’t wait for the next in the series!

Well, well! This! This is a story I did not anticipate in any way. I honestly was expecting a highly romantic novel. While some might say Winning Maura’s Heart, (The Hangman’s Daughters Book 1)is a romance novel; it is really not. Yes, there is romance. But this book is so much more…

Encased between the pages of the beautiful cover is a story about the aftereffects of Yellow Fever when parents die. It is a story about orphans needing someone to look after them. It is a story about people needing redemption. It is definitely a story about loss. It is also a story about how human nature fears what it does not understand. It is a story about outlaw gangs of the old West.

Author Linda Broday enveloped all these storylines encapsulating them into one fantabulous story Winning Maura’s Heart. At its core, Winning Maura’s Heart is about doing good and having faith that in the end, a higher power is watching out for everyone. The characters are utterly realistic and unforgettable, and you get completely immersed in their lives.

Maura and her sister Emma are the Hangman’s daughters. They are run out of town and in tow, they take all the kids who have been orphaned. Nearly every single character in this book has had a hard life and most are searching for redemption. There is romance but not like you think – meaning you do not have tons of kissing and flowery language. Soon into the book it became unputdownable and engrossing because underneath all that I have mentioned is a mystery of who really was saved by Maura.

I love it when an author introduces me to something I have never known before. Spiderwebs! Thank you, Linda, for introducing me to the folk, historical remedy of using spiderwebs as bandages for wounds.

Winning Maura’s Heart reminds me of the movie Once Upon a Time in the West only told with Linda’s fantabulous storytelling. I’m looking forward to Book 2 in this series. This book delivers a fresh, unputdownable experience to devour in a weekend and transports you back in time to the Texas old West, puts smiles on your face, and gives you hope.

A woman judged and ill-treated for her father’s profession rescues a wounded man, but is he lawman or outlaw? This is the setup for a powerfully emotional western romance written by an author who writes the Old West of Texas with heart.

Winning Maura’s Heart is the first in The Hangman’s Daughters series focusing on Maura, who with her sister Emma had a tough childhood and still face the unearned cruelty of others simply for what their father does. Their tender and loving mother, when she was alive, offset the withdrawn distance of a father who was a hangman by profession. Their mother couldn’t protect them from all the bullying kids and their equally mean-spirited parents and their father was gone doing his work, so Maura and Emma have a sensitivity for the unwanted and downtrodden of the world.

When no one else in San Antonio will, the sisters nurse the yellow fever sufferers, get driven out when the plague seems to have passed, but they take the orphaned children of this latest plague with them into the old Alamo mission, joining three Catholic Sisters who have come to open the Mission back up and their own drunken Uncle Max with demons of his past.

Not long after they arrive, Maura comes upon a man shot and close to death. His personal effects and the saddlebags on his horse only give interesting hints that point to two extremes. He’s either a lawman or an outlaw. And, when Calhoun comes to and starts to get better, he’s not really forthcoming. But, the pair of them are drawn to each other even as the danger of an outlaw gang looking for the loot from their last bank robbery, Calhoun’s mysteries, and the trouble that always follows the hangman’s daughters are enough to divide them unless they can hold strong and hold to each other.

With the same attention to historical backdrop, western action and suspenseful build-up, layered characters, and tender yet compelling romance, the author draws the reader into a new series set up. What a unique background for Maura and Emma. My heart broke many times for these sisters who were shunned, bullied, and abused simply because people were uncomfortable or hated that their father hung criminals for a living. And, they didn’t even get a supportive parent with a mother passed away and their father’s means of living making him emotionally cold and physically barely there.

Added to the two sisters, their Uncle Max, who didn’t have it easy either with his brother following their father in the hanging profession and his troubling past. He was a fascinating side character who I enjoyed knowing and seeing him really make an effort through is struggles when his nieces and the orphans came. The three nuns were a nice addition to the underdog group at the mission. And, of course, there are the whimsical and touching ways of those orphan kids who lucked out at last with the found family that Maura and Emma made for them.

The romance was intriguing as the reader is kept in the dark with Maura as to which Calhoun twin survived the skirmish with the outlaws when the law-abiding twin went to find his brother who was a member of the outlaw band. Maura is reluctantly falling in love with her eyes open to the possibility of either even as she resists the feelings because everything in her past has taught her that love, a husband and normal family life are not for the likes of her. Meanwhile Calhoun is struggling to get his health back so he can deal with the outlaws that will come looking and endanger Maura and the others. I don’t want to give anything away. I swung between suspicions of which twin he was through a good deal of the story, but still fell in love with him right along with reluctant Maura.

The build to the confrontation and the reveals was as good as it promised through the story. Man, were my emotions vested. I do love how Linda Broday writes her western romances, so you get all the good stuff and a satisfying finish with a strong anticipation for more. The world of that time and place is drawn so well that I can heartily recommend this one to fans of romance set in the harsh times of the Old West.

The Hangman’s daughter vs the Outlaw Gang!

I’m not big on Western romances but thought I’d give this a whirl. It has it all, a feisty heroine and her sister, a tall gunman who appears to be a Deputy US Marshal, a vicious baddie and his gang, a drunken Uncle, three wonderful French nuns and a host of delightful children. The action takes place in and near to San Antonio, Texas in 1867. How they all come together is quite a satisfying yarn.
Maura and Emma Taggart are the daughter of the Hangman, rendering them outcasts as far as the local society’s concerned. They are ostracized and worse by the “kindly christian citizens” of the town. Yellow Fever had plagued San Antonio with many dead. The girls had tended the dead and dying with kindness and determination with no thought of payment. These are two big hearted women. They'd looked after the growing number of orphans. After the worst was over, when there services were no longer needed, they were run out by those same “good” citizens.
But they had a plan. They resettled themselves and the children at a mission some miles away. A mission already inhabited by three French nuns.
When Maura went out hunting she found a man almost dead. That’s when the story really got started!
Maura and the lawman Calhoun developed a relationship, albeit with some hesitation. I must admit it was a little too “shucks ma’am” for my taste but it worked.
Naturally nothing is simple. The outlaws come back and things go from bad to worse. Still heroes need a good ending, and this definitely had that.

A Severn Press ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.

I absolutely loved this book, a fantastic start to this series. Two lovely sisters who have been dealt a hard life both show kindness and love to a group of orphaned children, and the added is he or isn’t he that Calhoun brings keeps the reader guessing and doubting throughout. Very well written story weaved around outlaws and bigoted townsfolk.

This is definitely a book of outcasts. People in town want nothing to do with the hangman's daughters. Of course they have the biggest hearts of them all.

The characters in this book are fantastic, especially all of the orphans. They brighten up the fears from hiding from the outlaw gang. When Maura finds Calhoun, she doesn't know much about him and really accepts who he truly is inside. We all have an inkling on which twin he is, but those secrets aren't a major issue in the plot or character development.

I really like the action parts in this book that added some suspense. That kept me reading a lot more than the romance part, which in all honesty was a bit slow. It was mostly cute an innocent for a majority of the book, which did fit with Maura's character.

I like this first book in the series and am intrigued to where it will go from here.

Thank you to Severn House and Netgalley for providing me a copy of this ARC for my honest review.

I haven't read many western books so I was unsure what to expect, but, I really enjoyed it. Well written with well developed characters and an engaging and captivating storyline. I can't wait to read more from this series