Meet a shy banker in

Mary Connealy’s 

historical romance novella 

Meeting Her Match in

A Match Made in Texas

by Karen Witemeyer, Regina Jennings, Carol Cox, and Mary Connealy

Bethany House

The Story

There’s a secret matchmaker at work in frontier Texas!

In the small town of Dry Gulch, Texas, a good-hearted busybody just can’t keep herself from surreptitiously trying to match up women in dire straits with men of good character she hopes can help them. How is she to know she’s also giving each couple a little nudge toward love?

A Cowboy Unmatched
Neill isn’t sure who hired him to repair Clara’s roof–he only knows Clara desperately needs his help. Can he convince this stubborn widow to let down her guard and take another chance on love?

An Unforeseen Match
Hoping to earn an honest wage on his way to the land rush, Clayton ends up on Grace’s doorstep, lured by a classified ad. He may have signed on for more than he expected though–and he may have found the one woman who can keep him from moving on. 

No Match for Love
Andrew can’t fathom how refined Lucy ended up as the caretaker to his dotty aunt, and somehow her arrival has prompted even more bizarre occurrences around the ranch. When they join forces to unearth the truth, will the attraction between Andrew and Lucy develop into more?

Meeting Her Match
When the tables are turned and a tenderhearted meddler becomes the beneficiary of a matchmaking scheme, her world is turned upside down. As her entire life changes, will she finally be able to tell the banker’s son how much she cares for him?

Enjoy meeting Marcus

Brief physical description

Marcus Whitfield is a different kind of hero for me and I just LOVED HIM. He is shy, especially he is painfully shy around Hannah, given to terrible blushes, likely to trip and fall, but only with her, poor guy. Tall, skinny, blonde, so sweet and brainy. When he’s with his friends he’s just a nice normal guy but Hannah has never heard him say a complete sentence.

Resembles…

Simon Baker

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths ~ Marcus is a partner in his father’s bank and very well-to-do, very smart. He’s so kind and he is completely in love with Hannah and has been since he moved to town when he was about twelve years old.

Weaknesses ~ shyness, blushes bright red—mainly when Hannah speaks to him. Clumsy, but only with Hannah. Happiest with his account books. Numbers make sense to Marcus. A tall skinny guy, although Hannah starts to realize at some point she’s really remembering him as the boy she knew in school who always competed with her for the top spot in the class, he’s actually filled out quite nicely, broad shoulders and strong.

Quirk (if any)

Marcus is all quirks…but only with Hannah, but because the book, a short novella, is about 95% between Marcus and Hannah we only see him briefly interacting with other people. And when we do, Marcus is actually pretty cool. He’s a successful businessman. He has a nice group of friends who he can handle well, unless they start talking about Hannah of course.

Your inspiration for the character

I think I used myself as an inspiration for both Marcus and Hannah. I was so shy when I was a kid and it’s easy for me to get inside the tortured mind of a person who doubts themselves and second guesses every word they say. Who goes over and over and over something they did and beats themselves up for being an idiot.

Background to the story

The real inspiration was the story of Jacob and Leah from the Bible. When she was married off to Jacob, slipped into that wedding when he was supposed to be marrying Rachel. I just thought that had to be so humiliating for her, especially as you read the rest of the story and see how desperately she longed to be loved. And let’s face it, she had a LOT of children with Jacob it’s not like he righteously said, “I was fooled into marrying her but my only love is Rachel and I shall forever be faithful to her.

Nope, Jacob and Leah had a pile of kids. So Leah had a right to expect some love and she could NOT get it.

Thanks Mary!

Relz Reviewz Extras
Visit Mary’s website
Visit Bethany House’s new blog
Buy A Match Made in Texas from Amazon or Koorong