19 May 2017

Seven Brides for Seven Mail-Order Husbands Romance Collection


My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Genre: Christian historical romance, novella collection
Format: Free digital ARC from NetGalley (no compensation for review)
Sweet or hot?: Completely sweet
Expected publication date: 01 Jun 2017

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this post. If you click through and make a purchase, I will get a few coins and my coffee budget will thank you. However, if you are skint and have to borrow the book from your library, I understand.

I've read quite a few of these historical romance novella collections but this is the first time I've actually written up a review of one. I'm not sure whether I prefer the collections that have a loose theme or the ones where all the novellas are set in the same town.  Anyway . . .

Seven Brides for Seven Mail-Order Husbands is a novella collection from Barbour Publishing. The premise that connects all the stories is that Turtle Springs, a small town in Kansas, has lost the majority of its men due to the Civil War. In order to revitalize the town, the women decide to place an ad in several papers around the country for husband auditions that will be held in May 1866. Each of the stories follows a different woman during the time period surrounding the auditions.

My favorite story in the collection is "The Kidnapped Groom" by Susan Page Davis, which is about two kids who "kidnap" a man for their widowed mother so she won't have to go through the husband auditions. The author did a good job of giving the reader a full story within the limitations of a novella's length, which always earns high marks from me. My second favorite is "Louder Than Words" by Gina Welborn, and it is about a reporter who comes to town to write a story about the husband auditions and the local woman he becomes smitten by. Welborn does a great job bringing the characters and their conflict to life, but the story ended too abruptly for me.

As can be expected with Christian romance, the heat level on these books is zero. It is all sweetness and light. There isn't much Christian content, either. "Louder Than Words" addresses a crisis of faith, but the other stories get by with a few Bible verses being quoted at the beginning of the chapters. The lack of heavy sermonizing makes this a collection that can be passed on to a secular friend, but devout Christians might prefer more faith-based content.

This may not be the most well-rounded example of a novella collection, but it is worth checking out. It is just the type of volume to keep on hand when I need a historical romance fix between other books.


Seven Brides for Seven Mail-Order Husbands on Amazon
Seven Brides for Seven Mail-Order Husbands at Book Depository

No comments: