The Maid's Quarters (Crawford Family #2.5) by Holly Bush

When Alice came home from Texas, she didn't expect the door to be locked and her mother and brother not home.  What had happened while she was gone?

Goddess Fish Blog Tours and the author shared this book with me for review (thank you).  It has been published, so you can pick up a copy now.

It's a novella, so it's an easy read.  Ms. Bush gives you enough details to flesh the story out and make it interesting.  I've read her work before and she always does a good job with her romances.  I like stories that leave the characters living happily ever after.

When she finds out they have been evicted without a chance to take anything with them, not even her brother's medicine, Alice goes on the warpath.  She's going to straighten this out.  What she finds is that no one wants to listen to her.  She tries to brace the lion in its den, but the secretary won't let her past him.  It's a good thing the owner hears her and comes to talk to her.  He calms her down and looks into it.  What he finds is not good news.

It gets even worse when the rent collector comes the next day and trashes everything in the house.  Being caught the owner means he lies about who did the damage but there are too many other witnesses.  All of a sudden, the rent collector and his thugs are unemployed.

Albert tries to make it right by buying the family new furniture, linens, dishes and anything else destroyed.  The longer he's around Alice, he's sure he's in love with her.  But he's a landowner with lots of money and she used to be a maid.  She's not good enough to be his wife.  She's got another secret, too, but she hasn't told anyone about that.

There's give and take and compromise in this story.  Her father comes home.  He's been off on a drunk for years and has death facing him but he'd like to be with his family.  Alice has to decide what do about him, what to do about Albert and how she's going to live her adult life.  

I enjoyed this read a lot.  Ms. Bush writes good stories.  She's also giving away a prize during this blog tour: 

Holly will award a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn commenter via Rafflecopter.

Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found HERE.

Happy reading!