A Bride for Keeps by Melissa Jagears

Back Cover: Everett Cline will never humiliate himself by seeking a mail-order bride. Not again. He’s already been jilted by three mail-order brides and figures a wife just isn’t in his future. However, a well-meaning neighbor hasn’t given up on seeing him settled, so she goes behind his back to bring yet another woman to town for him.

Julie Lockwood has never been anything more than a pretty pawn for her father or a business acquisition for her former fiancé. A mail-order marriage in faraway Kansas is a last resort, but she’ll do anything to leave her life in Massachusetts and the heartbreak she’s experienced there.

Although Everett doesn’t see how a beautiful, cultured woman like Julia could be happy sharing his simple life, he could really use a helpmate on his homestead. Determined to prove she’s more than just a pretty face, Julia agrees to a marriage in name only. Faced with the harsh realities of life on the prairie and hesitant to explore the tentative feelings growing between them, can Everett and Julia ever let each other in long enough to fall in love?

Review: Everett Cline certainly cannot seem to win the lotto when it comes to women. He’s put in an order for a mail-order bride THREE times…and each and every time a woman has stepped off the train it’s been directly into another man’s arms…or in one unfortunate case, into a coffin.

Most men would have given up after the second bride, but Everett persisted. But after three attempts, even he has lost hope in finding a helpmate.

When a well-meaning neighbor secretly puts in an order for a fourth bride, Everett is NOT happy. Though she’s undeniably beautiful, there is no way he is going to let his emotions or heart get wrap up in her. He knows all too well that he is not destined to be a married man.

Shockingly, Julia, even though she answered the call to come to Kansas, is almost as reluctant to wed as Everett. With much reserve, the two agree to sign a marriage contract – in name only.

With heavy pasts burdening both of them, Julia and Everett embark on the slow, rough journey of getting to know each other. No matter how they try though, hearts are slow to mend and love is not an easy path for either of them.

"Book has been provided courtesy of Bethany Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.
Available at your favourite bookseller from BakerBooks, a division of Baker Publishing Group"