50 States of Love Books in Order

Tracey Bateman's place in the 50 States of Love line comes through Brides of Kansas, a collection that gathers three linked historical romances set on the Kansas frontier. Rather than feeling like random stories tied together by a state name, these books work best as a family-centered arc about women trying to build decent lives in rough circumstances.

Kansas does a lot of the work here.

The collection opens with Cassidy Sinclair, who is out of options and caring for her young niece when she answers an ad from a widower in need of a wife and mother for his children. From there the story widens into the St. John family and the town around them. Tarah's Lessons brings in a frontier schoolteacher, a returning preacher, and two abused children who need safety more than sentiment. Laney's Kiss shifts the mood again, following a tomboy who does not intend to let anyone else take the reins of her future.

What links the books is not just location. Bateman likes women who are practical before they are romantic, and Kansas gives them plenty to be practical about. There are ranches to run, children to protect, small-town expectations to push against, and constant questions about what a secure future might actually look like.

The tone is gentle, but not flimsy. These are faith-based frontier romances, yet they have enough hardship and stubbornness to keep them from feeling too sweet. Bateman writes strong-willed heroines well, and she understands that domestic life on the plains could be both tender and exhausting.

If you want the shortest way into this corner of her work, Brides of Kansas is it. You get three connected stories, a clear sense of the Harper, Kansas world, and a front-row seat to the kind of historical romance Bateman wrote so well early in her career. Readers who enjoy family continuity will probably want to keep going into Emily's Place afterward, since the St. John line continues there.