Books like Fair play by Deeanne Gist

A novel about Emma Woodhouse, a young woman's struggles with matchmaking, misplaced pride, and the dangers of meddling in others' lives in 18th-century England.

After her husband’s tragic death, Marty Claridge becomes the unexpected mother of Clark Davis’s daughter, Mission. As she bonds with the family, she faces a life‑changing choice: return home or stay on the frontier.

Elizabeth, a teacher turned pioneer, marries Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer Wynn Delaney and faces isolation and hardship at their remote northern outpost, testing her love and faith.

An unsentimental yet uplifting story of marriage and young love set in poverty and hardship, Joy in the Morning is a timeless novel about the strength of a loving, loyal relationship.

A rodeo star returns from the past, seeking redemption when he discovers the daughter he never knew. Now a single mother protects her child’s heart while reflecting on faith and the chance for a new family.

Lucy Muchelney becomes a translator of a pioneering French astronomy text for the Countess of Moth, and unexpectedly falls in love with her quiet widow, Catherine St. Day, while navigating scientific collaboration and personal heartache.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important and dramatic chapter in the American story the settling of the Northwest Territory by dauntless pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would come to define our country. As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler's son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires, wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough's subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them. Drawn in great part from a rare and all but unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. This is a revelatory and quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough's signature narrative energy.

Rural switchboard operator Georgie Gail defies a male‑dominated world until Texas Ranger Luke Palmer, undercover against train‑robbers, is assigned to her station—bringing romance, danger, and a test of loyalty to the telephone lines.

Three women on the Oregon Trail navigate love, sacrifice, and identity amid frontier hardships, trading a house for companionship, revealing tangled destinies and the cost of quick bargains.

Clare Walsh agrees to a marriage of convenience with rancher Noah Livingstone to keep her family home and brothers, only to find herself falling for him, while Noah must confront past secrets that could threaten their fragile union.

At fifteen, Jane Austen dreams of purpose, writing, and love. A chance visit to her brother in Kent introduces the alluring Edward Taylor, sparking romance and a mischievous matchmaking adventure amid the era’s social customs.

Missionary Julia Foster leaves the markets of India for the halls of Highland Hall, where as governess she must navigate privilege, faith, and a family in crisis while her new master, Sir William Ramsey, wrestles with financial ruin.

After a rocky marriage, Jay Crawford meets the irresistibly seductive Ashlee Anderson. A one-night stand turns into a fiery, obsessive affair where devotion and turmoil collide, forcing Jay to confront whether love or danger wins.

A determined art student must complete Louis Tiffany’s stained‑glass chapel amid a glassworker strike, proving herself as a "New Woman" and discovering the true meaning of art, love, and independence.

When two small‑town newspaper staffers fall for each other, office policy and a snowy Christmas raise the stakes. Will a miraculous holiday season give their love the chance it needs?