THE SCHOOL MISTRESS OF EMERSON PASS by Tess Thompson

This is the start of a new series by Tess Thompson, author of the Blue Mountain and Cliffside Bay series’s. Both are excellent series’s and I throughly enjoyed them. I think I have a whole new favorite though. This book was so good.

Quinn is an innocent young woman new to the mountains of Colorado. She has come to Emerson Pass to teach the children there. Little does she know what awaits her. Her heart will be filled in ways she never thought possible. She always assumed she would be a spinster and just a school teacher who never got married. When she meets Alexander and his five children her heart is forever changed. She sees five angels and they worm their way into her heart from the start.

Alexander is the father to the five children in this story. He hired Quinn through the mail to come teach the children of Emerson Pass. He was under the impression that she was much older. Alexander had lost his wife when his last child was a baby. He didn’t have time for love. But the more he is around Quinn and sees how she is with his children and how sweet she is all around, he falls for her. He had come to Emerson Pass after it had burned and rebuilt it. He wanted a safe place for his family and the residents of the town.

This book is so good. It’s a story of innocence and also prejudice. There are many emotions involved, laughter, sadness, happiness, love, prejudice, murder, family. It’s the perfect story to keep you turning the pages. I felt the cold in my bones in this book. The snow falling and the children’s laughter was perfect. The love that blossoms.

There are parts that made me so angry too. The murder of Samuel Cole. He was married to Rachel who was a black woman and the people of Emerson Pass didn’t approve. That just wasn’t done in the early 1900s.

The characters in this book are all so likable. Alexander’s children are so sweet and normal, even the feisty ones. The landscaping is beautiful and you will feel like you are right there in their home, the school and the town. Descriptions are done wonderfully. The love story is so sweet. So natural and realistic. This book just has it all. From start to finish it will hold your heart captive. I think Tess Thomson wrote the perfect love story with this and I can’t wait to see how she will top it in the next book.

Thank you to #Tess Thompson, #MaryAnn Schaefer for this ARC in exchange for my complete honest review.
I LOVED IT!

A big 5 stars and high recommendation.