VBT: The Cowboy's Email Order Bride

The Cowboy’s E-Mail Order Bride

by Cora Seton

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BLURB:

Ethan Cruz should be mending fences on his Montana ranch, but instead he’s driving to the Chance Creek, Montana, airport – to pick up the bride he didn’t know he had. This latest salvo in his ongoing practical joke battle with his best friend, Rob Matheson, has gone too far, and Ethan plans to send his “bride” right back home, then get busy plotting his revenge. One look at Autumn Leeds changes his mind, however. Perhaps he needs a bride, after all. A breathtakingly beautiful city bride.

Autumn Leeds needs a story – fast – or she’s going to lose her lucrative contract with CityPretty Magazine, so when she sees the crazy video plea for a modern mail-order bride for a cowboy, it sounds like the story of the century. Making a video of her own, she casts herself as the perfect mail-order bride for a rancher, but when she finally reaches Montana, she’s surprised to find Ethan’s the perfect cowboy husband-to-be. Against her better judgment, her plan to keep her handsome groom at arm’s length disintegrates into a night of passion spent in his arms.

Ethan knows he can’t keep playing this game – he has to come clean with Autumn and tell her the truth; about the practical joke and about the state of his ranch. He’s about to lose it all because of the debts his mother racked up before his parents’ deaths. Now his sister, Claire, wants to sell the ranch and collect what little money they can. He’ll be out of a home and a job, and in no shape to support the bride he desperately wants to marry, after all.

Autumn’s in bigger trouble than ever. Not only has she fallen in love with the subject of her expose – she might be carrying his child. If she doesn’t write this article and secure her job for another year, she’ll lose everything – her career, her apartment, and more importantly, her family’s approval. The only alternative is to stay and marry Ethan. But how can she trust a man she’s just met when she knows too well that men always let you down?

Can a love based on lies last?

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Excerpt Two:

She glanced up at Ethan to find him glancing down, and the warm feeling curved around her insides again. Surely New York men couldn’t be shorter than this crew, or any less manly, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been around so much blatant testosterone. She must be ovulating. Why else would she react like this to a perfect stranger?

Ethan touched her arm. “This way.” She followed him down the hall, the others falling into place behind them like a cowboy entourage. She stifled a sudden laugh at the absurdity of it all, slipped her hand into her purse and grabbed her digital camera, capturing the scene with a few clicks. Had this man – this…cowboy – sat down and planned out the video he’d made? She tried to picture Ethan bending over a desk and carefully writing out “Sweet. Good cook. Ready for children.”

She blew out a breath and wondered if she was the only one stifling in this sudden heat. Ready for children? Hardly. Still…if she was going to make babies with anyone…

Shaking her head to dispel that dangerous image, she found herself at the airport’s single baggage carousel. It was just shuddering to life and within moments she pointed out first one, then another sleek, black suitcase. Ethan took them both, began to move toward the door and then faltered to a stop. He avoided her gaze, focusing on something far beyond her shoulder. “It’s just…I wasn’t….”

Oh God, Autumn thought, a sudden chill racing down her spine. Her stomach lurched and she raised a hand as if to ward off his words. She hadn’t even considered this.

He’d taken one look and decided to send her back.

Review Rating: 4 LIGHTNING BOLTS

Review: Well, we've all heard the phrase mail order bride, but of course, modern technology being what it is, it's only fitting we have a email order bride story. The title alone captured my attention, so i had to find out what this was all about!

I was pleasantly surprised. I'll admit, the idea of an email order bride and the fast way things turned out is a little far fetched, but hey. It's romantic fiction. I'll go with the flow. That's what I love about these kind of stories. They make you want to believe, no matter how odd it may seem. 

Ethan has had a lot of struggle in his life recently. He's been burned by a woman wanting things he just can't give. He wants to keep his ranch afloat and it's just not panning out for him. The whole thing with the email order bride started off as a joke, but it turned into so much more. Let's just say he's not the only one with hidden intentions, and it's going to take a lot for a life based on a lie to turn into real love.

Autumn is young, full of dreams and frankly not ready to settle down. Why does she answer this 'ad'? She's got her own reasons, and Autumn is in for a big surprise when the tables are turned and her heart open to the idea of something real. 

The Cowboy's Email Order Bride is a quick, fun read. It's lighthearted, without a lot of deep down emotions, but I could still feel the things the characters did. There are some you'll like and there's some you'll not like as much.  I certainly rooted for Ethan and Autumn to figure out what they really want so that maybe they have a real chance at love. Who doesn't? That's what a romance is all about. I'm intrigued to read more by this new to me author. 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Cora Seton loves cowboys, country life, gardening, bike-riding, and lazing around with a good book. Mother of four, wife to a computer programmer/eco-farmer, she ditched her California lifestyle eight years ago and moved to a remote logging town in northwestern British Columbia.

Like the characters in her novels, Cora enjoys old-fashioned pursuits and modern technology, spending mornings transforming a neglected one-acre lot into a paradise of orchards, berry bushes and market gardens, and afternoons writing the latest Chance Creek romance novel on her iPad mini. Visit www.coraseton.com to read about new releases, locate your favorite characters on the Chance Creek map, and learn about contests and other cool events!

Website:www.coraseton.com

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Twitter: @coraseton

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