A Bride For Keeps by Melissa Jagears - Review of the first book in the Unexpected Brides series

The last thing Everett Cline wants is another mail-order bride, what does Rachel think she's doing sending for one without even telling him. The town already laughs and talks about his luck with women. I mean who would want to try a fifth time after the first one arriving DOA and the other three marrying other men, one before she even arrived in Kansas. Not only that he'd originally been jilted by Rachel's sister who married a man and moved back east. NO! He does NOT want to go through with this.

Julia Lockwood feels that men only want her because of her good looks. Her mother died when she was nine years old after Julia 'let' her newborn brother die. According to her father she is to blame for the death of both of them, I don't know who he blamed for all of the other children that were lost, Julia was the only child that survived. Her father used her for a pretty pawn and he was forcing her to marry a man who only wanted her fathers business. When her fiancee pushes her too far and ruins her, Julia knows she has to run. After answering Rachel's ad for a mail-order bride and becoming friends, she goes to Kansas. Then when she's attacked again, in Kansas, she has even stronger feelings about not having a complete marriage or ever having children.

This was a good story about the struggles some mail-order couples went through. Melissa keeps you reading and pulling for the two to 'JUST TALK' to each other. One trusts God to get them through, the other doesn't think they are good enough for God to care about. It looks like this is going to be a great series.