"Serving Up Love" by Multiple Authors

Serving Up Love (Nov. 5, 2019) by Tracie Peterson, et al.

The book states that this is “A Four-in-One Harvey House Brides Collection.” In short, Harvey Houses were a chain of successful restaurants built along railroads. Harvey Houses were known for their impeccable hospitality, and, perhaps, even more for their Harvey Girls. All Harvey Girls had to be single and white and were subject to a specific dress code and a strict curfew. They were; however, treated well, given room and board as well as a wage considered generous for the time. This collection contains four novellas from leading inspirational, historical romance writers.

   1. A Flood of Love by Tracie Peterson.

            To fill in for the vacationing house mother, veteran Harvey Girl Gretchen Gottsacker returns to her hometown of San Marcial, New Mexico. It is August 1929. It’s been 10 years since she left the railroad town to train to be a Harvey Girl, and she never thought she’d return. Even more surprising is that her love of a decade ago, Dirk Martinez, has also returned to San Marcial. He has a precocious daughter named Katiann, whom Gretchen has the pleasure of meeting the day of her arrival at the Harvey House (and before she realizes she’s Dirk’s). In truth, Gretchen has never stopped loving Dirk, but when he left without explanation, she felt betrayed. When he explains why he left (it is honorable), can Gretchen find it within herself to forgive him? Can they pick up the missing pieces through sun or rain, dust or devastating flood?

   2. More Than a Pretty Face by Karen Witemeyer.

            A Harvey Girl for five years come 1902, Rosalind Kemp’s tenure has been exemplary. She is a godly, chaste woman. Unfortunately, she has been re-assigned to the Santa Fe Depot in Gainesville, Texas, before the end of her current contract. She was hoping to put in for a transfer to California, thus putting more distance between her and a past that seems determined to disrupt her life and prevent a lasting relationship with any man who is upright and just. A man like Gainesville’s handsome young lawyer, Caleb Durrington. Like any lawyer worth his salt, he is prepared to throw out his most convincing arguments to convince Rosalind to marry him (and I tended to find his obsession with her overbearing and a bit creepy, but not in a dangerous way). He not only struggles to woe Rosalind, but is met with adamant disapproval and disdain from his mother, Estella Durrington (who says the word waitress as if it’s a synonym for the word trollop). (No matter that his mother is motivated by her own overbearing love for her son, her behavior is damaging, embarrassing and atrocious, and I wouldn’t forgive her instantaneously.) What could be so bad that Rosalind wants to run and hide instead of accepting the love of an upstanding man? Will Mrs. Durrington’s meddling ways be irreparably disastrous?

   3. Intrigue a la Mode by Regina Jennings.

            There is love behind the work Willow Kentworth does as a Harvey Girl at the Emporia Harvey House in 1898. She is determined to do the best work, so she can continue to wire money to her parents to help pay her mother’s doctor bills. And Willow does her best work, is the finest at her job even by persnickety Mrs. Sykes’ impeccable standards, until new busboy Graham Buchanan arrives. Not wanting to be associated with his railroad-baron father (and grandfather before him), he takes on the name Buck Graham as he tries to investigate smuggling on their railroad. His search is dangerously life-threatening more than once, and it’s Willow who comes to his rescue both times (she is no damsel-in-distress, that’s for certain). But will Graham’s brushes with those who would have no qualms in leaving him for dead put Willow’s life and/or job at risk? What will she think of the 23-year-old man when his aristocratic manners and patrician accent come out? When she learns he’s “one of the railroad family?” And who is the Pinkerton detective that his family has hired?

   4. Grand Encounters by Jen Turano.

            What’s a New York society girl (related to members within the New York Four Hundred) doing working as a Harvey Girl at the El Tovar Hotel, Grand Canyon, in 1908? One Miss Myrtle Schermerhorn is swearing off men forever. Or that’s what she’s told her good friend and fellow Harvey Girl, Miss Ruthanne Hill. All of that seems to be changing with the frequency of Mr. Jack Daggett’s visits to the Harvey House, and his interest in her is all but confirmed by Jack’s meddlesome, though well-meaning, younger brother, Mr. Walter Daggett. Jack wonders if Myrtle would glide into society life – Chicago society, not New York, as the Daggett family with their more recent wealth would be considered “upstart members of the newly rich.” He’s not fond of society, which is why Myrtle avoids the topic of her high society upbringing. She knows she must tell him and is encouraged to do so by Ruthanne, who’s connected very well with Walter, but Mr. Percy Kane beats her to it. He shows up unannounced and with the assumed declaration that they are still engaged despite his previous rejection of her for another young woman. Will this unforeseen ripple in their new relationship wither like an un-watered flower before it’s had a chance to bloom?

   Overall Thoughts: When I began the book, I wasn’t in the mood for historical romance; however, I found the historical aspect of the stories fascinating. Before this, I was unaware of Harvey Houses and the Harvey Girls that kept them up to perfection. Reading these stories has prompted a wish in me to visit any site that was previously a Harvey House, especially those featured within these four stories. Each of the authors is a virtuoso in her writing craft. No two stories are alike, and each features a smart, independent, empowered lead female. The stories are as impeccably written as the immaculate table settings and crisp, starched aprons every Harvey Girl wears. I have read full novels by each of these authors, and while I have a favorite author amongst them, I have at least liked the novels of each of them.