3.5 stars

She'd married well. And she'd done it to save the family another winter mouth to feed. She hadn't liked her husband all that much. But she'd been soft-spoken and loyal to him and had birthed his son. She'd minded her husband as she had her family and would have done whatever he said until the day she died. But he had died. That had changed everything.

This month's #TBRChallenge was “With a Little Help From My Friends”, the synopsis for this made it sound like the townspeople were going to, helpfully, push Althea into a marriage and while it was a little more forceful trying to push, and not to who the two sides were pushing, Althea did get a push towards considering marriage again, so it counts, I say!

Althea's mom died when she was a baby and her dad remarried pretty quickly, leaving Althea with her aunt and uncle. This caused Althea to grow up feeling beholden, so when the time came for marriage, she just went along with the first guy, Paisley, who could provide for her. Paisley ends up dying in the first couple years of their marriage, leaving Althea with a three year old, Baby-Paisley, and a coveted farm. Going by her own childhood, she doesn't want to marry again because that spells abandonment and she doesn't ever want Baby-Paisley to feel how she did and she wants to be in control of her life for once. This upsets the two main families on the mountain (this takes place in early 1900s Ozarks) that want to one up each other with control of the farm. One man from each side of the two families is offered up to Althea, Eben and Oather, for her to marry.

They took him for granted. They all did, Althea realized, including herself. His value to the community continued to be errantly minimized, because Jesse himself was underestimated. He was different. He was like no one else. He was not an equal. Did that make him less? No, Althea thought to herself. Not necessarily.

While Althea is trying to stand strong on not remarrying, she does understand that she needs some help on the farm and offers a deal to “Simple Jess”, he work for her for a few months and she'll give him her late husband's pack of hunting dogs. Jesse has always wanted dogs of his own and happily takes the deal. I went into Simple Jess honestly thinking Jesse would turn out to have dyslexia or some other specific learning disability that the author could kind of do a little cop-out to, but when Jesse was born, the cord was around his neck, causing his brain to be without oxygen for a while, leaving him with intellectual disability. As this takes place in the early 1900s, there are terms and words used that we consider slurs now, so be very aware of that if choosing to pick this up.

When I first started this, what captured me immediately, was the heart of the story and characters. This is second in a series, you can tell Jesse's sister and her husband were the main characters from the first, but I had no trouble starting here. Jesse is not always the same as others, he takes longer to think things through and gets overwhelmed easier but what I liked was how the author also showed the values he can bring and how he can understand. As he helps Althea around the farm, readers can tell he has feelings for her, with Althea learning about him and slowly getting building blocks (he kills a deer for her, bonds with Baby-Paisley) to see him a different way. With the characters and situation, it makes sense that their romance doesn't really heat up until the latter half of the book, I'm talking around 85%.

While I understood and thought it worked/made sense that their romance would take longer to develop, what I wasn't as into was how the middle meandered away from Althea and Jesse. If you're more of a series reader, wanting more of the setting world in your stories than a straight focus on the main couple, then you'd probably enjoy this more. If you ever watched the show The Outsiders, this had some of that hillbilly mountain people feel. There was a secondary couple, Eben and Oather's sister Mavis, that took up a good amount of the second half and you're probably not going to be a fan of Eben and enjoy him getting a HEA (he's a playboy with daddy issues who emotionally and physically hurt/s Mavis). Oather also gets his own spotlight some with the issues that could and do come with being gay in the 1900s Ozarks (there was a little speech from his dad at the end that made my eyes water and became very close to stealing the best emotional moment).

So, while I thought the beginning was slow building heartfelt good, the middle meandered away with more focus on the setting/world-building characters, a secondary romance that I wished wasn't, and a latter second half that felt pretty rushed. However, this was different in some good ways and I think it still should hold a spot on romance lists, with the caveat of content warning outdated terms. Althea didn't learn to love Jesse in spite of but because of, Jesse's Big Gesture at the end would put a lot of other heroes to shame. ( )

This book is such an unexpected surprise in a wonderful way. Jess is handsome, hard-working, strong, and kind to animals and children. Perfect husband material - except he was born with a birth issue that left him sometimes slower in speech or cognition. When he hears widow Althea Winsloe is planning to sell her hounds, he makes a deal to work around her farm to acquire the dogs.
They live in the small mountain community of Marrying Stone in the Ozarks in the early 1900s. It's made up of two basic families, both of whom want to get their hands on Althea's farm, so a scheme is concocted that forces Althea to pick a husband from one of the families by Christmas. She has no wish to remarry, intending to keep the farm for her young son Baby-Paisley (named after his late father).
While the two hand-picked suitors and the rest of the community conspire around them, Jess and Althea are working to get the farm ready for the winter. I really enjoyed the details about Ozark mountain life, the farm work, and how they entertain themselves. The author has a wonderful grasp of speech and customs that I appreciated a lot.
The secondary characters have rich backstories too and add much to the overall story. Fitting in in a small community where you may be different isn't easy and the author does a great job in showcasing their stories.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book, but I loved it. Jess and Althea's relationship develops slowly and equally on both sides. Each has much to offer the other and I appreciated how the author didn't downplay Jesse's contribution. A great story that I'd recommend to anyone enjoying a different type of historical romance. ( )

Nice book set in the Arkansas Ozarks. Jess was born with the cord wrapped around his neck. Very smart once he's taught things, but he can't communicate well, so he's considered "simple Jess" which he accepts as his name. Widowed Althea is being forced to marry again by the townfolks. Jess steps in to take care of her farm, while she makes up her mind about suitors, and discovers the good and honesty in Jess & he's not really simple at all. ( )

A romance featuring a mentally disabled hero. The story was enjoyable, and the people and lifestyle of Marrying Stone fascinating. Althea's resistance to remarriage and gradual falling in love with Jesse were well done, as is Jesse's admiration of Althea. Jesse's problems with processing input rang true with what I observe of my autistic son.

What struck me most about this story was that it'd be much harder to tell it in a modern setting. Jesse Best definitely has cognitive impairments, but he knows how to hunt and butcher, to care for animals, to do the daily tasks on a farm -- he's able to do all the things an adult male in his society needs to do, and he's quite capable of being a good husband and father. In the modern U.S.? He'd likely be in a group home and bagging groceries, and romance and marriage wouldn't be in his future. This book has definitely made me think about how the severity of a disability depends in part on the surrounding society. ( )

Widow Althea Winsloe just wants to be left alone to raise her young son as she sees fit. Unfortunately for her, the men and women of her tight-knit village in the Ozarks are determined to see her remarried, and soon. Determined to remain in control, she plans to sell her husband's well-respected pack of hunting hounds. No one's going to just marry her and take what's hers, she's saving everything on the farm for her son to inherit one day.

In the general store when Miss Althea discloses her plan to sell her hounds, Jesse Best chases after her to try to buy a dog from her. Nearly strangled by his umbilical cord when he was born, he's known as "Simple Jess" to the townfolk. An honest man and hard worker, he's nonetheless often taken advantage of for his lack of wit or logic. He's a simple man, and he wants three things in life - a dog, a gun and a woman.

Seeing an opportunity, Althea makes a bargain with Jess. He can earn all the dogs by working on her farm to get her set for the coming winter. Wanting to earn a living like a man, and excited to own his own hunting dogs, Jess eagerly accepts.

This is the one book I've read that's truly captured the truth of disability. Jess was a fabulous character in that he was nothing special. He was only intractably different in other people's minds. He wasn't an inspiration to others, he was just a man whose brain didn't work quite right, but went about his life doing things his own way.

When the story is told from his perspective, there's no angst or drama from him on his otherness. He regrets that other people treat him bad or take advantage of him, and wishes that he could keep up with other people's thinking, but he doesn't see that as making him less than anyone else. He just works hard to do right the things he can do. When we read the story from his perspective, it's colored with a sense of wonder and confusion. The prose changes a bit to reflect his simpler thinking but without bogging the narrative down in awkward sentence construction or excess dialect. You see less rumination on other people's motives and more of him repeating things to himself so he won't forget.

I loved Althea as well. She's a strong woman determined to spare her son the drama she went through when her widower father remarried. She's reluctant to marry again and have her new husband slight the son that isn't his own blood. The more she works with Jess, the more she begins to appreciate a man who works hard but isn't afraid to defer to someone else's judgement when he should.

Thankfully, the book avoids a common pitfall of books dealing with disability and there's not so much as a hint of charity in Althea's relationship with Jess. Loving him doesn't make her a better person, it makes her a happy person. She genuinely values what he can contribute and is happy to compensate for his weaknesses. Bit by bit throughout the novel we see the many things she has a newfound appreciation for once she sees him as a man.

And thank goodness, because pity sex is just pathetic. When these two finally get together it's anything but charitable. Their first kiss is equal parts sweet, passionate and awkward. Jess's inexperience is tempered by his blunt honesty, and having a man plainly say how much a woman drives him mad is hot, hot.

As strong as the main couple is, and as much as I love the treatment of disability, I think the secondary characters might make the novel. The town of Marrying Stone is populated with a wide variety of characters and none of them are cardboard placeholders. Even antagonists Eben Baxley and Oather Phillips have rich backgrounds and nuanced personalities, giving the marrying plot more depth and drama. Althea and Jesse are made even more vivid by the rich characters that surround them and the colorful conversations they have with them.

Simple Jess was a pleasure to read and I'd recommend it unreservedly to anyone who loves an emotional, character-focused read. ( )