A BRIDE FOR KEEPS

A BRIDE FOR KEEPS                                    MELISSA JAGEARS
Posted: Oct. 23, 2013

A Bride for Keeps by Melissa Jagears A Tender Tale of Love on the Prairie Perfect for CBA Readers
Although Everett Cline can hardly keep up with the demands of his homestead, he won't humiliate himself by looking for a helpmate ever again--not after being jilted by three mail-order brides. When a well-meaning neighbor goes behind his back to bring yet another mail-order bride to town, he has good reason to doubt it will work, especially after getting a glimpse at the woman in question. She's the prettiest woman he's ever seen, and it's just not possible she's there to marry a simple homesteader like him.

Julia Lockwood has never been anything more than a pretty pawn for her father or a business acquisition for her former fiance. Having finally worked up the courage to leave her life in Massachusetts, she's determined to find a place where people will value her for more than her looks. Having run out of all other options, Julia resorts to a mail-order marriage in far-away Kansas.

Everett is skeptical a cultured woman like Julia could be happy in a life on the plains, while Julia, deeply wounded by a past relationship, is skittish at the idea of marriage at all. When, despite their hesitations, they agree to a marriage in name only, neither one is prepared for the feelings that soon arise to complicate their arrangement. Can two people accustomed to keeping their distance let the barricades around their hearts down long enough to fall in love?


MY REVIEW:

This for me has to be one of the weirdest stories I have ever read when it comes to mail order brides. This is a period piece, believe it or not I had no idea when I started this book it was a Christian based read. So, imagine my surprise when I am more than two thirds through this book and I find out that it is.
It starts really spouting scripture. Which I have no problem with but it just seemed so out of context to what was happening in the story. Especially since both characters said that neither of them got to church much and that they did not read the bible on a regular basis. You see Julia Lockwood was raised by her widowed father after her mother died as well as a younger brother after being born. So life was not good since the age of nine. Then her father was going to marry her off to a business partner that was not a nice man to further both their businesses. But this man did something awful to her that she just can’t talk about so she applies to a letter for a mail order bride from Rachel who applied on behalf of a man by the name of Everett Cline. And the Julia left home on the train and never looked back.
Everett on the other hand had no idea that Julia was even coming until minutes before she was to arrive and that was by accident. You see he had already had bad luck with mail order brides in the past in fact 4 times already. So it was not in the cards for him as far as he was concerned. So, he wanted no part of this whole set up. So, you have one scared rabbit and one bad luck Charlie and a meddling friend now what? You have a sweet story that for me unfortunately went on for about 50 pages to long. With Julia whining about her not wanting a good man like Everett because she was scared and emotionally scarred. Everett took his marriage vows seriously and no matter what was going to stand by her and his word to God. She wanted to have just a friendly marriage but each day got harder for him so this story had a lot of good parts it is just the way the author beat me over the head that got to me after a while. Provide by netgalley.com

Trailer for My Wolf's Bane by author Veronica Blade



Veronica Blade
          VERONICA BLADE INTERVIEW ON        FRIDAY          10/25/13     


 

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