Mail Order Vows

Brides of Sweetheart Falls #1

by Maya Stirling

Brides of Sweetheart Falls series: Book One. A sweet, full length, complete mail order bride romance novel with an HEA.
Wyoming 1878
On the verge of giving up on a future in the growing Wyoming town of Sweetheart Falls, and heading back to an uncertain life back East, recently widowed mail order bride Cassie Miller is given a final chance at happiness.
Soon Cassie finds out she has no choice but to marry handsome ex lawman Ethan Macleod. However, can she make a new life while trying to come to terms with the loss of her beloved husband Joshua?
Can she really trust Ethan, the man the entire town agrees would make a perfect husband? How come he already knows so much about Cassie?
And just how far will he go to prove to her that he is worthy of being her new husband?

Genres: Westerns

173 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 14, 2013

Reviews

[Katrina Passick Lumsden]

Uhh. Well. It's not often I review a book after only reading the sample. In the interest of being fair, I'm not giving it a rating, but I did feel it necessary to warn other readers. It's not often I see such shoddy writing that I feel the need to not only save my measly ninety-nine cents, but also to red pen the hell out of a sample. I red penned 73 grammatical errors. Yes, 73. In the sample. It's basic stuff, too, like neglecting to use commas before people's names...

"Good morning Joshua."

"It's not fair Joshua."

"Good afternoon Reverend Baxter."

"And how are you keeping Mrs. Miller?"

Me: And why aren't you letting her go?

The rest of the issues are those of comma usage (mostly missing commas which make complex sentences clunky), plot inconsistencies, and stilted dialogue. This exchange in particular made me feel like I was reading a high school writing assignment:

"'What are you doing to yourself, Cassie,' she said concernedly. 'I'm working the land, Julia. That's what I'm doing,' Cassie replied defensively."

Then there are passages like this:

"Cassie awoke next morning after a dreamless sleep. Her muscles ached as she got dressed. She made herself a simple breakfast of eggs and coffee. She stood in front of the mirror in the living room. She looked at herself."


Awkward writing is awkward.

'No one' is hyphenated, while 'know-it-all' isn't, which is just bizarre to me. There also seems to be a rather disturbing overabundance of incomplete sentences. You know, those one-to-three-word sentences that sometimes help convey emphasis. I don't mind those when they're employed conservatively, but when there are ten of them peppered throughout the first chapter, it drags the writing down.

All of this is bad enough, but when I stumbled across a plot contradiction in the sample, I actually huffed out a breath of indignation. I mean, usually a writer has to get pretty far into the story before making a gaff like that. On one page, we're told that Cassie left behind a rather uncomfortable family life in Maine, but a few pages later, it's claimed she's from New York. Afterwards, New York is mentioned several times. I assume the author decided to change locations after writing the rough draft, but that means she didn't bother really going over her manuscript before publishing it. If you care so little for your story, why should the reader bother?

Last to be pointed out is one of my more nitpicky pet peeves. I know a lot of people screw this up, but the fact that it's such an easy thing to remember once you know it means that when someone doesn't know it, I wonder wtf they're doing writing books.

"'How many times did you tell me that getting the earth to give up it's goodness...'"

"...was a new town that had sprung up when the railroad had pushed it's way through the territory."

Its. ITS. There is no apostrophe in the possessive 'Its'. If you think I'm being silly, reread both sentences with the words "it is", which is what the author actually put there. It makes zero sense. Hence the reason we generally use apostrophes for contractions and leave them out of possessives.

*Sigh*

I'm gonna go try and find a western romance from a writer with some aptitude for writing.

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had higher hopes for this mail order bride book. For me, it was just an okay story with likable aspects.

What I liked:
1. I LOVED Ethan
2. For the most part, Cassie was an okay heroine who could be strong.
3. The turn about of how she became married to a mail order husband.
4. Clean book.
5. A bit of a twist...Ethan's secret.

What I didn't like:
1. POV was all in Cassie's. I would have used Ethan's point of view.
2. Cassie liked to compare her deceased and living husbands.
3. Cassie always brought up her dead husband, especially at not the right moments.

[Frances Wolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice read

This was a nice very sweet and romantic story Just perfect for an afternoon read, there is two more books in the series.

[Jodi Baysden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all of Maya Sterling’s books. Her character development is great.

[Melissa Cook]

A sweet story

It was a sweet story, if somewhat predictable in nature. I chose "it was ok" as my rating because I couldn't get past several spelling and grammatical errors throughout.

[Kristie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a good--clean book--I loved it and I`m anxious for the next book--released this month?? I hope!!

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story and an enjoyable read.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok. That's all I can really say. Decent way to pass a couple hours but I can't rave about it.