Debra Clopton

Excuse me while I gush.
I LOVE this book.
Now, let me go back and tell you exactly why.
My time being limited, I'm careful to only choose books I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy reading. There have been times where I've been let down a little, and that comes with the territory. I'm not a big reader of anthologies ~ I don't know why, but these are relatively new to me.

I'm hooked.
This book, with each individual story written by four different, fantastic authors, is a keeper. This will warm any show more historical romantic lover's hearts who's time is limited, and who doesn't want to sacrifice quality of story. Each short story has its own drama, its own issues that keep the readers interest and will prod them to read on. Way past their normal bedtime.
Heroines that won't quit. Heroes that you'll sigh over. Cowboys, the wild west, and true love. Does it get any better than that?!

Meet Mary-Jo, in And Then Came Spring who stomps into her fiance's...funeral ~> how's that for different, huh?
In An Ever-After Summer, you'll find yourself cheering Ellie on while taking on a stubborn mule that you know you're going to love. And it's not just her husband, either!
Luvena, in Autumn's Angel, will make you wonder if this beauty is indeed cursed with bad luck, as well as a sweet heart, and, then you'll meet my ultimate hero and favorite story,
Winter Wedding Bells with cute and plucky Megan who's fiance is convinced he's going to die. But she's too feisty to let him.

This book is fabulous. I have not only spent a super enjoyable day reading each story, but I have added three very talented authors to my favorite authors list. I say three, because Mary Connealy already was on that list. Way toward the top...
I highly recommend A Bride for All Seasons.

*My thanks to the publisher, Thomas Nelson, who sent me a copy in exchange for a review. I was not required it be positive. It's just really that good.* show less

Lacy Brown and her friend Sheri move from Dallas to Mule Hollow, Texas, to open a beauty salon. This little town isn't a random choice. The older ladies of Mule Hollow placed advertisements looking for women to move there and help revive their dying town by becoming potential brides for the men. The town is sadly reduced after the collapse of the oil industry locally cost them a large part of their former population, and nearly all the young families and unattached young women.

Lacy doesn't show more plan to be one of the brides. She's on a mission--a mission from God--to help the women who will come to find the right matches among the cowboys who currently have no one to marry.

This is a Christian romance. That can mean a lot of things. In this case, Lacy is, on the one hand, the kind of southern, Evangelist, talking openly about it, Christian that is very distant from my own New England, Catholic and Episcopalian, reserved sort of Christian. In my culture, you don't talk that openly about sincere religious belief, not because it's not important, but precisely because it is. It's for guiding your moral choices and judgments, and your relationship with God is a private matter, not for putting in the shop window, on public display. Lacy Brown is from a really different culture, where people who don't talk often and enthusiastically about their faith--about something that in my culture is deeply private--you are presumed not to have it.

With all that said, Clopton convincingly portrays Lacy as a woman whose faith differs from mine mainly in these cultural aspects, not in its essential substance or sincerity. And that's even as a good bit of her outward behavior is, in my culture, a marker of shallow and insincere claims of faith. I feel a connection to Lacy in the matter where her outward behavior is most alien to me.

That's good writing.

Lacy is smart, capable, tough. She genuinely likes other people, and is not judgmental about people whose view of life is different from her own. She's clear-headed about knowing what values she does need a potential spouse to share with her. She has an enthusiasm for life that's captivating, and a commitment to keep trying to be a better person, and a natural and genuine impulse to help others in ways that will really make them better off.

Her plan to help Mule Hollow seems outwardly a bit nutty and impulsive, and she in fact goes about it in a thoughtful and intelligent way.

And of course, she's barely reached the town when she meets Clint Matlock, and clashes spectacularly with him on the main street in town, in front of everyone.

They're in some ways very different people, and in other ways have important things in common. They're both a bit damaged by abandonment by a parent--Clint by his mother, Lacy by her father. Each has something to learn from the other.

I really like both of them, and it's fun seeing their relationship develop. Overall, this book is a lot of fun, and satisfying.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. show less

I am such a sucker for a cowboy western story. Four Weddings and a Kiss anthology mixes the best of both worlds with the cowboy western with four of these stories. I enjoyed reading them all. Each one had charming loveable characters. Although, I have to say that my favorite stories were Spitfire Sweetheart and A Love Letter to the Editor. This is because both Maizy and Molly in my opinion really stood out. They were more bold and I liked this quality about them. Plus, they were not afraid show more to really speak their minds. They stood up for what they were about and still got their men in the end. Of course, all four stories did have happy endings. The romance in each one I would call as sweet and mild. There was not much other action that took place then kissing involved. show less

Let me save you the trouble of reading this book--it's a tired plot that's not reworked in an interesting fashion and apparently "The Trouble With Lacy Brown" is that her last name is not Matlock--as in Clint Matlock's wife. In between their meeting and their getting together you're subject to 250 some pages of "I don't trust women because they tend to run off when the going gets tough" and "I want to run a business, I'm not in the market for a husband."