Vickie McDonough
Barbour Publishers, Inc
ISBN 978-1-60260-696-8
How many brides does one man need?
The first line on the back cover blurb grabbed my attention, and I had to read more. So I turned to chapter one: Sometimes God asked difficult things of a man, and for Luke Davis, what he was fixing to do was the hardest task ever. Yep, that was enough to make me put The Anonymous Bride at the top of my “To Be Read” list, and I’m glad I did.
The scenario woven by author, Vickie McDonough, is light and humorous, but at the same time threads of mystery and regret are lurking behind a cloak of sorrow. The main characters are crafted so well, I caught myself stepping into their skin and thinking like they think. I could hear the wistfulness in Luke’s voice when he spoke about Rachel, and felt Rachel’s disconcertment when she had to play hostess to the three women who showed up in town, all claiming to be Luke’s mail-order brides. But overshadowing her uncomfortable situation with the brides is her longing for Luke’s forgiveness for things in their past. If only she’d made different choices.
Even the secondary characters—a pair of ornery cousins and a precocious ten-year-old girl—are so real, I felt like I needed to offer them cookies and lemonade while they visited with me. I laughed out loud when the bride contest got underway.
Romance and rivalry do-si-do hand in hand across every page to the tune of a Western hoe-down. This was a fun book to read, and I’m looking forward to reading Second
Chance Brides, book two in the Texas Boardinghouse Brides series by Vickie McDonough.
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