Peeks into the Past....

A Bride for All Seasons ~ The Mail Order Bride Collection
By Margaret Brownley, Robin Lee Hatcher, Mary Connealy, and Debra Clopton

"It all started with an ad in a mail-order bride catalogue . . .
This charming bouquet of novellas introduces you to four Hitching Post Mail-Order Bride Catalogue prospects in the year 1870, all eager for second chances . . . and hungry for happiness. Year in, year out, they'll learn that love often comes in unexpected packages."

The owner of the Hitchin' Post Mail-Order Bride Catalogue has a good, booming business. So, he changes a few of the advertisements a little and adjusts some of the correspondence....it's all for the good of his clients! See what trouble can occur when a few choice words are changed, or left out completely in this collection of novellas about brides-to-be and the bridegrooms that are expecting them....or are they?

"And then Came Spring" by Margaret Brownley

The lot is cast into the lap,

But its every decision is from the Lord.

PROVERBS 16:33 NKJV

This story starts of with a jolt, as Mary-Jo barges into the church for refuge and crashes her fiancé's funeral. Not a good way to begin a marriage. Not to mention, she has discovered her fiancé's other "secret," his incorrigible son. Mary-Jo's first instinct is to high tail it back home, but does she really have a "home" to run back to? And is the sheriff brother of her dead groom as cold and callous as he seems?

"An Ever After Summer" by Debra Clopton

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares
the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm
you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”

JEREMIAH 29:11 NIV

 

Matthew McConnell put an ad in the Hitching Post requesting a "practical woman to keep house and be a mother to his two-year-old baby girl. Bible believers need not apply..." what he received was Melvina Eldora Smith, Ellie, a lovely young woman with a sad past and a passionate hope for her future. When she steps off the stagecoach clutching her Bible, Matthew puts up a brick wall. Will Ellie's sweetness and faith be able to break down the barrier to Matthew's heart and find the happiness she is sure that God has planned for her?

"Autumn's Angel" by Robin Lee Hatcher

This means that anyone who belongs to
Christ has become a new person. 
The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 NLT

Luvenna Abbott is heading west with her sister's orphaned children to meet her new husband, Clay Birch. Unfortunately, Clay doesn't know that Luvenna is a package deal; and he isn't all too thrilled with the prospect of an instant family. Now, instead of planning a bright future for himself, his new wife, and their opera house in dismal Grand Coeur, he has to figure out a way to gracefully send them all on their way....or does he?
 
"Winter Wedding Bells" by Mary Connealy

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art
with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

PSALM 23:4 KJV

 

When David Laramie puts in his ad for a wife in the Hitching Post, he made his request simple, "Prosperous Wyoming widower with two sons needs a wife. I seek neither beauty nor wealth nor education. But must love children, accept ranch life, be willing to work hard." When he receives a reply from Megan McBride, he doesn't hold back, and is honest when he expresses to her that he isn't expected to live for more than a year. However, the letters between the two are intercepted by Melvin Hitchcock, the owner of the mail order bride catalogue, and some details, specifically those involving David's illness are left out. When the truth comes out, will Megan high tail it away from David and his boys, or will her spunk and sass bring much more than a helping hand into the lives of the Laramie men? 

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