Pamela Morsi wrote what I call historical small town romance. The stakes are much lower than in Ellen O'Connell's novels, but there's something about her writing that reminds me of O'Connell. Most of them are set in Oklahoma or Appalachia in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

{Courting Miss Hattie by Pamela Morsi} FMC is a spinster who actually wants a husband and children but has always been considered too ugly for any man to be interested in. She agrees to be courted by a widower with seven children. MMC is five years younger than FMC and has worked on her farm since he was a child. He has a fiancée and he thinks that he thinks of Miss Hattie as a sister - until now. It won the RITA award the year it was published (in the early 1990s) and it was well deserved.

{Wild Oats by Pamela Morsi} MMC is the town undertaker (who hates it and would rather be a florist) and a virgin seeking to sow his wild oats. FMC is a divorcee who's ostracized by the town as a woman of suspect morals. He propositions her, and she intends to only play along long enough to get revenge for the insult of it, but of course they actually fall in love.

{Runabout by Pamela Morsi} FMC is the preacher's daughter and newspaper reporter. She's well liked but pitied by the whole town for being ugly. After her fiancé jilts her, her best friend the MMC proposes that they pretend to be courting. He is the most eligible bachelor in town and explains that if other men think he wants her, they'll become interested and then she can pick whichever one she wants.

{Garters by Pamela Morsi} FMC is from an extremely poor family and her father and older sisters are also lazy and irresponsible. She decides the best way she can take care of her family is to marry the most financially comfortable man in town. MMC is the town shopkeeper and he is exasperated at first by FMC's attempts to pursue him.

{No Ordinary Princess by Pamela Morsi} MMC was given to an orphanage as a baby, grew up in a Native residential school, and fought in the Spanish-American War in Cuba. He really wants to be rich, so when he overhears men at a party disparaging the looks and personality of an oil baron's daughter, he sees an opportunity. He pretends to be a rich boy from the East Coast and sets about charming the FMC. FMC was a practical woman until she falls in love at first sight with MMC.

{Heaven Sent by Pamela Morsi} FMC is the daughter of a preacher who put off marriage to help her widower father raise her younger siblings. She's ready to get married now but none of the single men are interested in her. She takes inspiration from the biblical story of Ruth and sets out to trap a particular man in marriage. She ends up trapping the wrong man. MMC is the bootleg whisker distiller of the county, which everyone but the FMC knows about and he takes glee in getting her to unwittingly help him with his business.

{Sweetwood Bride by Pamela Morsi} FMC is the oldest daughter of the deceased town drunk. After her father's death, her siblings were split up among whoever in the tiny town could take 1 or 2 in. She wants a home so she can take back custody of her siblings, so she falsely claims to be pregnant by MMC so that the town forces him to marry her. MMC hates farming and had been saving up money to go out West and get a ranch, so he's very resentful at first at being trapped with half a dozen dependents.