Frankie Love

Mail-Order Brides for Christmas is a collection of (very) short stories from 6 different authors. Each story focuses on a different brother, though they have a common thing. You see, in order to save the town, the brothers need to be married and their mother has arranged a bride for each of them through a mail-order service. Some stories were good, some not so much but all had one thing in common. They were too short. I felt like Nate had some serious issues that he needed to take care of show more for example. Each story is like 50 pages long and there wasn't enough room for the romance to develop a little, so most of them felt abrupt. If the book had been 600 pages long instead of 300, I believe that I would have rated it higher. Also, you should know that3 of the heroines are virgins (but relatively young) and the rest are more experienced. As usual, all 6 heroes have done the deed. What bothered me the most though, was the lack of communication between the brothers. Only the prologue and the epilogue featured scenes with all of them together. It was like each guy was an only child.

Christopher by Fiona Davenport is my favorite story of the six. The characters were the most developed and I felt like the characters belonged to each other. I wanted to read more about these two because I loved them together not because I wasn't convinced about their feelings. (5 stars)

Hartley by Frankie Love had one of the tropes I have come to hate. Hartley slept around a lot, and of course, the heroine is a virgin. Should I mention that Hattie ran into some of Hartley's past women? She was such a sweetheart for someone like him. (2 stars)

Mason by Hope Ford was another good story. I would have loved to read an extended story on these two because it could be a very angsty story and I am dying for that kind of a story. You see Mia met a man she was interested in on the plane ride to meet Mason and there is jealousy on his part. Mason has a scar from the war and he thinks that Mia won't want him because of it and that's even more conflict. I gave this story 4 stars because it missed the opportunity to harvest the angst.

Nate by Kelli Callahan was a bit problematic for me because as I mentioned before, Hartley seemed to have some issues with smoking and drinking and I felt a little uncomfortable. He does all that behind his family's backs like he is a junkie. He really needed to either quit or come clean to his family. (1 star)

Matt by S.E. Law had interesting main characters, but it didn't have the same appeal as Christopher and Mason did. Probably because I didn't actually like the heroine. This story was inconsistent with the rest of the anthology because it takes place in July. The prologue though, which is when Joy announces to her sons that they have to get married, takes place in November. (2 stars)

I am not going to touch the subject of "Spencer by Tracy Lorraine". I will only say that this is kinda a second chance romance and that the heroine is a virgin while the "hero" was sleeping around. He is not a good person and I didn't like having him around. (1 star) show less

I guess we starting 2020 with DNF lol

That's a NO from me, chief.

I saw pretty cutesy cover and read synopsis, thought that would be an amazing quick christmas read. Spoiler alert: it wasn't.

Main characters are plastic-y and all cliches you've ever seen. He's your bad boy that's actually good, and she's perfect girl, that's actually "bad". They fell in love when they were children (6yo), but both thought they can't be together for some reason (the reason is - hero's a dumbass and they both show more don't know what communication is). Now they're 25 and still virgins and never been kissed before. That's okay and understandable, everybody moves at their own speed, good for them. I genuinely would love to read a romance novel where heroes are virgins and embracing that (not christian lit though), acting as adults about this topic. Also it would have been fun if we saw more kinky virgins in fiction. Ultimatley virgins are amazing, we love to see it. But. When the characters don't act and talk like they are actually inexperienced, when there's no cringey and awkward moments, when the sex scene is in a first 30ish pages... wow. I want some boundaries and build up to a sex scene. I understand that you are horny, but if you can stop and tell the girl why you didn't bring her to the dances when she was 16, you have time to talk about consent, personal boundaries and all that good stuff. IDC it's novella, you can cut heroine's friend or "boyfriend", I bet it won't change much.

The things I particularly didn't like:
- miscommunication about everything. both mc act and think like a horny teenagers and don't want to talk about their feelings.
- no protection. i would've been okay if there's been just two simple lines of dialog where he asks her is she on a pill or they have to use a condom. It's that simple, folks.
-author misses all beats. Her "boyfriend" shows up at his house right after they're kissing, she asking her friend to come watch a movie with her, etc. all the scenes feel like they were just smashed together witout any rhyme or reason. Reading this book is like watching that yotube video of titanic theme song on a flute. You know what I mean.

Since I dnfd this book on page 40 there is my main complaints, but I'm sure I could find many more.

But! This book is hilarious. It's so bad that it's actually good. All cliches and bad takes on tropes, language that heroes use, their actions - pure comedy gold. *chef's kiss*

10/10 creamy c*nts, as our main hero would say. show less

4 stars

This expose series is pretty fun. This book was a definite instalove story. It isn't meant to be anything more than a quick read and in that it served its purpose.

I loved this introduction into the Rough Family and all the fun inhabitants of Home. Hijinx is my favourite dog ever, he is adorable. I enjoyed watching both Bartlett and Abby interact with the many members of the Rough Family. I appreciated that Bartlett’s siblings were each different while still holding similar values instead of only having 1 odd one out like we often see. I think Abby and Bartlett understand each other in a way few others can, and I enjoyed watching Bartlett and his show more family fight for Abby. No spoiling but Abby’s full name and family business were such a fun surprise and made this story unique. I can’t wait to read the rest of the siblings’ stories and hope to see Abby and Bartlett make appearances.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review. show less