The Winning Hand ~ Paperback ~ Barri Bryan

Chadwick Hamilton decides to marry the mail-order-bride he wins in a poker game. He reasons that any female who is a graduate of Miss Lavenia Sitwell's Atlanta School for Young Ladies must be docile, refined and well-bred. His reasoning is sound but his assumptions are slightly erroneous. Miss Cherry Blossom is, by 1857 standards, a modern woman with strong beliefs and firm opinions. She is also a woman who is deeply in debt and in fear of being sent to debtor's prison, When her employer, Miss Lavenia Sitwell, offers her a way out of her dilemma, she promptly accepts.Author BiographyBarri Bryan is the pen name for Billie Houston. I acquired a pseudonym at the behest of my adult children when they discovered a steamy excerpt from one of my romances at the web site of a publisher. I am a former teacher and educator. I like poetry, George Strait's music, old movies and Earl Grey tea. My hobbies are reading, quilting, sewing, knitting, crocheting, taking long walks, and growing houseplants and herbs. I'm a four-time EPPIE winner and a published author with over twenty novels, four books of poetry, numerous essays, several short stories, and one non-fiction how-to-write-book to my credit. I have been writing since 1990. My first romance was published in 1998. I write the kind of books I enjoy reading --- romantic tales about relationships; stories that explore feelings and probe emotions. The plots revolve around ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and faced with difficult decisions.