Sunday, January 06, 2013

The Bartered Bride Collection: My Review



About the Book:
Treasure this beautiful collection packed with all the angst of romance founded upon practical arrangements. Four sisters travel in answer to an ad before even corresponding with potential husbands. Two women bend to the will of their parents in taking husbands. A widow commits to a stranger in name only. And two women on the Oregon Trail hitch their lives to men they’ve just met. Will love blossom for convenience sake?

My Comments:
Mail order brides have fascinated me.  I wonder what it was like to travel halfway across the country, far away from all you knew, knowing full well that you weren't going to drive "home" on summer vacation, to meet an marry a man who had to put an ad in the paper for a bride.  I suppose the answer for most of those women is that it was better than the alternative they had at home.  

This collection of nine stories was very religious Christian fiction.  These couples all read the Bible, prayed, quoted scripture and otherwise showed that faith was important.  Honestly, I found it all a bit over-the-top.  Who were these couples?  One was a Cajun couple from Louisiana.  His parents had raised her after her parents died.  His first love spurned him for another.  His parents decided they would marry.  The second married her best friend's brother after meeting him only briefly.  The next four were sisters whose brother-in-law sent them west when he confused an order for bridles with an order for bridals.  Nevertheless, two of them married into the family that "ordered" them; the other two found husbands in the same town.  Another didn't realize she was being sent as a bride, but thought she had accepted a job as a housekeeper.  The final one married the fiancee her sister jilted to save their father from financial ruin.  

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade:  C+



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