For the Record, by Regina Jennings {Book Review}

For the Record is the third and final book in the Ozark Mountain Romance series by Regina Jennings.

Betsy Huckabee first appeared in A Most Inconvenient Marriage as a child, with her older brother Josiah Huckabee. Through the coarse of the series, spanning 20 years, she's grown up and Betsy Huckabee is now a young lady, living with her uncle, aunt, and cousins in Pine Gap, Missouri. She helps around the household and helps her uncle, Fred Murphy, with his small-town newspaper. Betsy has dreams of becoming a journalist, is very independent, and has no desire to get married. That changes when deputy from Texas moves to Pine Gap.

Deputy Joel Puckett is escaping an unfortunate circumstance in Texas where he served as a deputy and was maliciously set up by a woman who wanted him to be her husband. Not willing to throw his life away and marry someone he did not love (and that he had done nothing with), he left when the opportunity arose for a deputy position in Missouri.

Post-war vigilantes, the Bald Knobbers

The small town of Pine Gap is nestled in the Ozarks and has its fair share of crime, including horse stealing and even murders. Sheriff Taney of Pine Gap is not able to keep the people safe, so the state of Missouri has brought in reinforcements in the form of Deputy Puckett. Upon his arrival, he is introduced to a gang of townsfolk that have taken the law into their own hands, riding on horseback with strange bags with horns over their heads, and calling themselves the Bald Knobbers. I thought the Bald Knobbers were a figment of the authors imagination until I looked it up! They are not what I had pictured. But they were real and they did what they could to keep their farms and towns safe.

Throughout the story, Betsy is keeping a secret from everyone that she is writing a romance column for a distant newspaper. The subject of her column is inspired by Deputy Puckett, who is not always so gentlemanly, so Betsy has to make things up as she goes along. Little does she realize, her column is a huge hit and has been picked up by newspapers around the country, including the town that Deputy Puckett had left behind. Eventually, her stories are discovered and becomes a source of embarrassment for Joel.        

Betsy's independence and stubbornness add so much to the story and makes her a fun character to follow. Regina Jennings has done an excellent job throughout the series in drawing the reader in to the story. Every story has a new mystery, and the characters can be rather colorful. I loved revisiting the same townsfolk with each book. Regina Jennings has a gift in creating witty characters and keeping the romance to an appropriate level. Betsy has been a favorite character from the beginning of the series and I was happy to see her happily-ever-after unfold.

Check out the entire Ozark Mountain Romance series: