Review - A Bride For Keeps

A Bride For Keeps
By Melissa Jagears
Publisher: Bethany House
Pub. Date: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0764211683
Pages: 336

Review:

It looks I'm finally catching up on a few book reviews. I have read several titles over the last few years with a mail-order bride plot, so I wasn't looking forward to reading another one. I sometimes make my book decisions by either the author's name or the cover of the book. I liked the book cover to A Bride For Keeps, so I signed up to review it, but little did I realize it involved a mail-order bride plot.

In A Bride For Keeps, Everett Cline has used the mail-order bride service three times and three times he has been jilted, leaving him very little faith in ever finding love. A nosy neighbor, Rachel, with well-meaning intentions wants him to have a bride and brings a mail-order bride to town.

To escape her violent past in Massachusetts and start anew, Julia Lockwood joins the mail-order marriage faraway in Kansas. Her husband-to-be, Everett, isn't exactly thrilled to see her, as he only learned about her minutes before her train arrived in town.

Everett has no choice but to marry Julia, but he is unaware of her excess baggage. She thinks of marriage as companionship only and there will be no children. It will take a miracle for the both of them to fall in love.

Despite a clichéd plot, A Bride For Keeps is a surprisingly emotional romance that plays more like a Hallmark movie (the good kind). The first few chapters were a little slow, but the pacing picks up once Julia arrives. Overall, A Bride For Keeps is a sweet romance.

*Disclaimer - I received a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.