TUESDAY TEA-A BRIDE FOR KEEPS by Melissa Jagears

I’m delighted to welcome you to the Sunflower Inn where we are sipping Tazo’s baked cinnamon apple tea with Melissa Jagears, author of A BRIDE FOR KEEPS, which released on October 1. The heroine of this book, Julia, bakes apple pies in this love story, so I’m serving mini-apple pies today as we discuss this mail-order bride romance.

MY THOUGHTS ON A BRIDE FOR KEEPS—

This is a  story filled with tender passion and gentle love….

While reading A Bride For Keeps, I was swept away to the Kansas prairie of 1876 to delight in the friendships of a small farming community and to experience the hard work of rural life. Fleeing from a hurtful past, Julia arrives in Salt Flatts as a mail-order bride. Everett is disheartened after previous attempts to order brides have been unsuccessful. Julia and Everett struggle to overcome their emotional hurts to find their happiness. They are sympathetic characters who rely on friendships and their own strong sense of right to deal with their situation.

I completely enjoyed this story filled with tender passion which is strengthened with the gentle thread of faith. My favorite line: “Whatever you’ve done, He’ll forgive.” Melissa Jagears’ debut is a well-written story of hope. And I hope she writes many more!

Now to chat with Melissa…..

SHERIDA:  This is a charming story, Melissa! Please tell us how you got the glimmer of the idea for A BRIDE FOR KEEPS?

MELISSA:  I heard a story where a family was arranging a marriage between the United States and Europe. Well, the man arranged the first marriage and it fell through, the second and it fell through, and he had the guts to order again. I wondered what could make a man desperate enough to face humiliation a third time. That’s what gave me the idea.

SHERIDA:  I really felt sorry for Everett when his many previous orders didn’t work out, so this was an engaging idea to use. As an author, what do you do to keep the sparkle while you are writing?

MELISSA:  I’m not sure I’m very sparkly, it’s more like being my own task master: “I have to.” So having crit partners or beta readers wanting to read my books is probably the best thing. If I didn’t have someone asking every now and then “When am I getting the next chapter/book?” I might never finish! The only thing sparkly I guess is I like wasting time listening to YouTube videos of Pentatonix sing as a reward sometimes…..or sometimes without even the excuse of it being a reward but just simply a procrastination technique. If you’ve never heard of Pentatonix, they’re a young accapella group, here’s them doing Video Killed the Radio Star. (Birth Year Song for me–just tattled on my age!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp4I3fgdf2o

SHERIDA:  Fun sparkle! And I agree that critique partners are invaluable encouragement. (*waving to my CP*) Beyond family, friends and your writing career, what jewel of a moment has God placed in your path during your life’s journey that you would share with us?  

MELISSA:  I guess I’d have to say when I was in China working at a college for teachers for the summer. I was there just to work and observe. (I became an English as a Second Language Teacher.) One day, I had over a girl to tutor. She wanted to show off her English reading skills, chose my Bible off the table, and started reading to show me how well she could do. And she read for a long time. Being that foreigners are watched over there because they are not supposed to evangelize, I found it neat that God got plenty of truth into this young lady by using her desire to show off. 

SHERIDA: That is so impressive and a perfect example of God working at His perfect timing! Thank you for sharing your experience!

 ABOUT A BRIDE FOR KEEPS—
Although Everett Cline can hardly keep up with the demands of his homestead, he won’t humiliate himself by looking for a helpmate ever again–not after being jilted by three mail-order brides. When a well-meaning neighbor goes behind his back to bring yet another mail-order bride to town, he has good reason to doubt it will work, especially after getting a glimpse at the woman in question. She’s the prettiest woman he’s ever seen, and it’s just not possible she’s there to marry a simple homesteader like him.
Julia Lockwood has never been anything more than a pretty pawn for her father or a business acquisition for her former fiance. Having finally worked up the courage to leave her life in Massachusetts, she’s determined to find a place where people will value her for more than her looks. Having run out of all other options, Julia resorts to a mail-order marriage in far-away Kansas.
Everett is skeptical a cultured woman like Julia could be happy in a life on the plains, while Julia, deeply wounded by a past relationship, is skittish at the idea of marriage at all. When, despite their hesitations, they agree to a marriage in name only, neither one is prepared for the feelings that soon arise to complicate their arrangement. Can two people accustomed to keeping their distance let the barricades around their hearts down long enough to fall in love?

ABOUT MELISSA JAGEARS—

Melissa Jagears, an ESL teacher by trade, is a stay-at-home mother on a tiny Kansas farm with a fixer-upper house. She’s a member of ACFW and CROWN fiction marketing, and her passion is to help Christian believers mature in their faith and judge rightly. Find her online at www.melissajagears.com.

Thank you, Melissa, thank you for joining us for Tuesday Tea. Thank you, READERS, for having tea with us and talking about A BRIDE FOR KEEPS.

Melissa has a novella, Love by the Letter, which is available for free on Kindle. http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Unexpected-Brides-Novella-ebook/dp/B00EVSB3N0/ref=zg_bs_158437011_f_17

*Bethany House generously provided a copy of A Bride for Keeps in exchange for my honest review.

Author: Sherida Stewart

Inspirational romance author and Christian blogger View all posts by Sherida Stewart