Book Review: No One's Bride by Nerys Leigh

Review by Iola Goulton

Mail Order Bride—from a British Author 

I was immediately intrigued when Nerys Leigh emailed me asking if I’d like to review No-One’s Bride, a Christian mail order romance story set in the American West in 1870. I do love a good mail order bride story—but it’s not something I typically see from British authors. Actually, I don’t get a lot of review requests from British authors at all, and I think Nerys is my first from someone with Welsh origins. Okay, I’m making that assumption because my daughter is Cerys (also a Welsh name), and the only Nerys I’ve ever met had Welsh parents. It’s possible her parents named her for Star Trek character Kira Nerys …

Anyway, onto the review

I was initially impressed because the email was exactly targeting on the kinds of books I like to read: Christian fiction, specifically, Christian romance. And I do like a good mail order bride story. Almost as much as a good marriage of convenience story …

I asked Nerys if she could send me a sample so I could decide whether or not No-One’s Bride was something I’d like to read and review. She obliged by sending me the whole book (hey, that was easier than the first couple of chapters), and I’m grateful she did because I read the whole novel in an afternoon, interrupted only to feed the family (who can be positively unreasonable sometimes. Expecting me to feed them).

Orphan Amy Watts lies when she agrees to become a mail order bride. She has no intention of marrying Adam Emerson, the bank and post office clerk from a tiny town in Northern California. She only knows she wants to go to San Francisco—as far away as possible from her rich, influential and lecherous New York employer.

Adam has prayed for God to bring him a wife, and he is overjoyed at his first sight of Amy—she is beautiful. He’s also pleased to find out she’s a likeable person—until she confesses that she doesn’t want to marry him. But she’s going to do the honourable thing and stay in town long enough to pay him back the money he spent in bringing her here.

While Amy was a great character and I fully understood her motive for her inappropriate behaviour, it was Adam who caught my attention. He’s the perfect gentleman, the perfect romance hero (if he has a fault, it is perhaps that he has no faults. Hey, it’s 1870 and the guy can cook and do laundry!).

I very much liked the Christian content—Adam and Amy each had a strong Christian faith, and this showed consistently throughout the book. I thought the writing was strong, especially for a debut author, and I especially liked the humour sprinkled throughout:

Amy was one of five mail order brides delivered to the tiny town of Green Hill Creek, and I think the remaining novels in the Escape to the West series will be the stories of the other four women.

Overall, No One’s Bride is an excellent debut novel, and I’m now looking forward to the next book in the series—Sara’s story. And waiting for Jo’s story because of what wasn’t said …

Recommended for fans of Christian historical romance from authors such as Mary Connealy, Karen Witemeyer, Regina Jennings, Carol Cox, Jen Turano and Lucy Thompson.

Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review. If you'd like to learn more about Nerys Leigh, pop over to Iola's Christian Reads tomorrow for an interview.

It's release week and I'm feeling generous ... leave a comment today, and I'll pick one commenter to win a Kindle copy of No One's Bride. Winner will be chosen 10:00 am Monday 5 September, New Zealand time. 

About Iola Goulton

I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction. Visit my website at www.christianediting.co.nz to download a comprehensive list of publishers of Christian fiction. 

I also write contemporary Christian romance with a Kiwi twist—find out more atwww.iolagoulton.com.

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