Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Mapmaker’s Wife | 2015 | Kathy L. Wheeler | Buy |
| 2 | The Counterfeit | 2019 | Kathy L. Wheeler | Buy |
| 3 | Jedadiah’s Mail Order Bride | 1998 | Kathy L. Wheeler | N/A |
| 4 | The Breakaway | 2019 | Kathy L. Wheeler | Buy |
| 5 | Not Quite A Mail Order Bride | 2014 | Kathy L. Wheeler | N/A |
| 6 | Until the Daybreak | 2000 | Kathy L. Wheeler | N/A |
| 7 | Let There Be Light | 2002 | Kathy L. Wheeler | N/A |
The Mail Order Bride series covers the longest stretch of Kathy L. Wheeler’s career, with the earliest books — Jedadiah’s Mail Order Bride and Until the Daybreak — dating back to 1998 and 2000. The premise is a reliable one in historical western romance: a woman with limited options agrees to marry a man she knows only through letters, then has to build a real relationship once she arrives.
Wheeler uses the mail-order bride setup to put her heroines in situations where they have to be resourceful. The frontier settings are fairly harsh by romance standards, and the women who travel west in these books are doing so out of necessity as much as hope. The Mapmaker’s Wife and The Counterfeit, both from 2015 and 2019, show Wheeler returning to the premise later in her career with more polished execution.
With seven books spanning over twenty years, the series shows the range of the subgenre — from straightforward western romance to stories with more mystery or adventure woven in.