The sensational third novel in Joan Johnston’s Western Romance Mail-order Bride series is part of her Bitter Creek series. A DESPERATE DECEPTION THE PROMISE OF FOREVER When Karl Norwood’s mail-order bride meets an untimely demise on the way to the Montana Territory, Hetty Wentworth steps in to take her place. Hetty has no idea how she’s going to pretend to be all the things she isn’t—including the mother of two kids. She only knows her deception is necessary if she’s going to save two orphans from the awful fate she suffered as a child. Karl smells a rat when a much younger woman than he was expecting arrives with two children who look nothing like her. But his mail-order bride is so beautiful, he doesn’t object—until he realizes that his charming new wife has been lying . . . about everything. Can a woman forced to keep secrets and a man hindered by distrust ever hope to find happily ever after in each other’s arms? Bitter Creek series Texas Bride Bitter Creek #1 Wyoming Bride Bitter Creek #2 Montana Bride Bitter Creek #3

I tell people that THE ADVOCATE feels like the book I was created to write; that it brings the three strands of my life together—pastor, lawyer and writer. (And reawakens a fourth—history teacher). Perhaps that’s because the idea for the book came from several different directions all at once. The first strand came when I was wearing my lawyer hat and teaching advocacy at Regent Law School. We were studying the great trials in the history of the world and I was ranking them in order of importance. The first, at least in my mind, was eons ahead of the others: the trial of Christ. What could compare to that? The redemption of all mankind hinged on the outcome. But the second was less clear. The Scopes monkey trial came to mind, unfortunately clearing the way for evolution to be taught in our schools. Or, on the more spiritual side, what about the trial of Martin Luther before the Diet at Worms? Then again, a few of my own cases seemed pretty significant. I finally settled on a trial that not many people think about—the trial of the Apostle Paul in front of Nero. It seemed to me that the…