A My Names Amelia

Deafened at a young age, her natural-born means of expression taken from her, Amelia Anne Polley must learn to communicate all over again. More than her ability to hear was taken from her, on the fateful day she fell ill in 1874. Left to grow up in frontier territory, at the Colorado Institute for the Education of Mutes, Amelia is determined to live the life she'd dreamed for herself, before becoming deaf. Her dreams do not include becoming anyone's mail-order bride, especially the handsome, roughened rancher, Aaron Zachary's. Amelia has reasons enough not to marry Aaron, not the least of which is that she and the weathered cowboy are complete strangers. Different in ways that count, for any man and wife, Amelia and Aaron surely won't suit. Why, they have nothing in common--except secrets--secrets neither wants to reveal to the other, and risk what might happen. Beyond the language of speech and sign, of reading and writing, and informed expression, is another language, one speaking to emotion and passion, a language far more intimate, and oftentimes, harder to learn. Only if Amelia and Aaron can find their way out of their troubled pasts, overcoming hardship and heartache, will they find their way to each other, and learn to speak the same language--of love. From Publishers Weekly Love blooms in late 19th-century Colorado between an illiterate rancher and a deaf-mute illustrator in Sundell's simplistic sophomore romance. After ruggedly handsome rancher Aaron Zachary places a mail-order bride ad in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Amelia, an artist working at the paper, becomes smitten with Aaron and marries him, but it isn't until they're on the way to his ranch that he discovers she and, after some maneuvering, the epileptic orphan she brought with her are both deaf. Aaron, meanwhile, has his own secret: he can't read or write. It puts a damper on communication around the ranch. Domestic struggles ensue. There is little here to recommend: the prose is uninspired, the characters act as if on stage and the plot limps along