The Princess Goes West Book

Her kingdom bankrupt, a princess travels to the New World in search of a fortune
When Princess Marlena's father, the benevolent ruler of the tiny kingdom of Hartz-Coburg, dies, he leaves behind nothing but a famous name and a mountain of debt. To fill her beloved nation's empty coffers, Marlena has two choices: marry or beg. Although she's considered one of Europe's great beauties, Marlena has a fiery temper and frightens off all but the most repulsive of the international nobility. Too proud to surrender to a man she does not love, Marlena goes to America to raise the money, arriving just in time to see the stock market crash of 1880. Penniless and desperate, the princess decides to find investors among the gold-rush millionaires of the American west. Instead she finds misery, danger, and a handsome stranger with a temper rough enough to match her own. To make it home, Europe's toughest princess will have to find her inner cowgirl.

Nan Ryan is an award-winning historical romance author. The daughter of a Texas rancher, she began writing in 1981, inspired by a Newsweek article about women who traded corporate careers for the craft of romantic fiction. She found success with her second novel, Kathleen's Surrender (1983), a story of a Southern belle's passionate affair with a mysterious gambler. Ryan continued writing romances, publishing novels such as Silken Bondage (1989), The Scandalous Miss Howard (2002), and The Countess Misbehaves (2000). Her husband, Joe Ryan, is a television executive, and his career has taken them all over the country, with each new town providing fodder for Ryan's stories.