The Convenient Bride Collection Blog Hop Day #1

Today kicks off the start of a week-long blog tour to celebrate the release of The Convenient Bride Collection from Barbour Publishers! You could win a 7" Kindle Fire loaded with amazing Christian Fiction!! See below for all the details...but first, enjoy this sneak peek of my story, A Groom for Josette.

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Welcome to Little Falls, Minnesota Territory in the year 1855.

 

The town was growing quickly around the banks of the Mississippi River and the dam that many believed would make Little Falls one of the largest cities on the river.

The town was filled with eager men looking to make a fortune.

The only trouble was, there were over three hundred bachelors and no single women! The men took matters into their own hands and created an advertisement for brides. They made the bold claim that there were a hundred eligible bachelors for every lady who came to town.

Thus the setting for A Groom for Josette.

Meet Josette LeBlanc, the daughter of a French Fur Trader and a Chippewa Indian.

Her mother died when she was young and her father moved her to St. Louis where he quickly remarried and started a shipping industry. After his death, Josette learns her inheritance will go to her half-brother Stephen when he turns twenty-one...if she isn't married.

She only has three weeks to find a husband, or she will be turned out on the street.

Josette reads the advertisement and travels by steamboat up the Mississippi to find a husband.

She reserves a sitting room at the Northern Hotel in Little Falls to conduct interviews.

But the hotel proprietor doesn't bring her to a sitting room...he brings her to the ballroom where a hundred men stand waiting to meet her!

One man in the room has entered on accident and has no interest in finding a wife. Meet Alexandre Dugas.

Alexandre has just made a year-long pilgrimage up the Mississippi from New Orleans to take a pastoral position with the Indians and fur traders, fulfilling his greatest dream. When he meets Josette, he feels compelled to marry her, but a misunderstanding threatens both their plans.

Did they make the biggest mistake of their lives by marrying in haste? Or does God have other plans...?

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To celebrate the release of The Convenient Bride Collection, all nine authors are giving away a 7" Kindle Fire loaded with amazing Christian Fiction! Enter the Rafflectoper below for your chance to win and don't forget to visit these other authors to learn more about their novellas!

Monday, July 6th
Gabrielle Meyer www.gabriellemeyer.com & Mona Hodgson www.monahodgson.com/blog

Tuesday, July 7th
Renee Yancy www.reneeyancy.blogspot.com

Wednesday, July 8th
Erica Vetsch at Coffee Cups & Camisoles blog http://coffeecupsandcamisoles.blogspot.com/
& Jennifer Uhlarik www.monahodgson.com/blog

Thursday, July 9th
Amanda Barratt www.gabriellemeyer.com

Friday, July 10th
Melissa Jagears www.inspirationalhistoricalfiction.com

a Rafflecopter giveaway
**I have a winner from my blog post on release day! Bonnie Traher wins a copy of The Convenient Bride Collection, as well as my first release, The Most Eligible Bachelor Collection! Congrats, Bonnie.**

The Most Eligible Bachelor Collection Blog Hop

Today I have the privilege of kicking off a fun blog hop! The authors of The Most Eligible Bachelor Collection are talking all about our bachelors this week (could it get any better than that?!?!), and giving away a fabulous gift basket to celebrate the release of our novella collection. Read to the bottom to see how you can enter!

To get the party started, here's a little about my story, Four Brides and a Bachelor, and my very eligible bachelor, Luke Longley.



Luke Longley is dedicated and passionate
about his work with the Chippewa Indians
in Northern Minnesota--but he's also a
rule-follower and bends to the will of the
Mission Board, who demand he find a wife

Luke is a missionary working on the Red Lake Mission in northern Minnesota in 1852. The missionary board has told Luke he must be married by the end of August, or return east, forfeiting over two years of work with the Chippewa Indians. Luke has heard a single female missionary is living a hundred and fifty miles down the Mississippi River at the Belle Prairie Mission. With nothing to lose, he takes a canoe downriver and when he arrives at Belle Prairie, he discovers there is not one single female, but four, and all are eager to marry!
Here are the four young ladies he encounters. Forgive their unsmiling faces. They were actually quite excited to meet the handsome missionary. :)

Genevieve Pinet is beautiful, hard-working, and
intelligent. But she's also very aloof and distant,
and Luke wonders if she'll open her heart to love.

Hazel Smith has the most mission
experience, but her practical personality
leaves Luke wondering if she'll find time
for the little pleasures in life.

Mary Cooper is filled with joy and merriment,
but Luke questions if she'll hold
up under the realities of frontier life.

Sarah Ellis has a gentle, kind spirit, and all the
mission workers love her, but she tends to
break rules set in place to keep her safe.
Luke is a rule-followers, and fears he cannot
marry a woman who doesn't do the same.

The story is set on Belle Prairie in central Minnesota, along the banks of the Mississippi River. The setting is a real place, where a real mission existed over a hundred and fifty years ago, and the premise of the story is real, as well. One of the actual women involved was named Harriet Nichols and she wrote a letter home to her brother about the incident. She said: "There was romance enough acted here to write as good a story as you will find in any novel."

The Mississippi near Belle Prairie

Belle Prairie today

In the fictionalized story, all four ladies have been given the same instructions by the mission board: marry, or return east. But none of them are eager to go back to their old lives. Luke not only represents a way for them to stay in Minnesota, but he's also handsome, hard-working, dedicated to his calling, and passionate about his faith.

Luke spends the week getting to know each woman, and over the course of several outings, his heart begins to fall for one of them...but will he overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of his happily-ever-after?

Now for some fun giveaways!

Hop over to the Coffee Cups & Camisoles blog (here), to enter the grand prize drawing pictured below, and don't forget to leave a comment on this post to be entered to win a signed copy of The Most Eligible Bachelor Collection from me! I'll draw a winner on Friday after 7:00 p.m. CST.

Stop by Author Shannon McNear's blog today to learn more about her eligible bachelor, too. You can find that here.

 

Here's a list of everything in the basket:

1. Collapsible storage cube.
2. A box of Ghirardelli chocolates
3. A book of MN stories called Bring Warm Clothes
4. A DVD (Nim's Island, Night at the Museum, & Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium)
5. A Gifts in a Jar recipe book
6. A whimsical little book of Dr. Seuss quotes.
7. A CD of Victorian Love Songs
8. A vintage-dressed lady Christmas ornament
9. A jar of preserves
10. A packet of lovely note cards
11. A little treasure box
12. A stuffed cow.
13. Dangly, sparkly earrings
14. A Starbucks gift card
15. A cotton tea-towel with a vintage typewriter on it
16. A turquoise cotton tea-towel
17. An apron
18. A miniature post office counter
19. In infinity scarf and fingerless gloves (In colors inspired by Egypt.)
20. A sweet little notebook with a penny-farthing bicycle on the front.
21. A copy of The Most Eligible Bachelor Collection -- AUTOGRAPHED BY ALL NINE AUTHORS!

 

Also, stop back here on Wednesday to meet one of the other authors from the collection, Kathleen Y'Barbo.