Colton: Army Hero's Email Order Bride by Audra Cole

 A Review by Wendy

3.5 Felt Like the Real Deal Stars

* * * 1/2

Finding your person is not as easy as it use to be...Oh, if you are lucky, you may meet through friends, or an organization or even work... but with all the ways we are so distracted for whatever reason...the mating game has taken a turn...to an older way in a new form...

I am talking about online dating...yes, the internet has caused this revolution of an unlimited resource of people searching for their one...Yet... If you think about it ... it actually is a reboot of the age old way of finding the mate...

Mail Order Brides...

The Written Word used as a way to reach out and tell another about yourself is as old as the discovery of writing...Cavemen drew on the stone walls... telling stories and it graduated to a form of speech to the progression of letters and words. Each time in history had a type of arranged marriages and with the advent of the New World of America...and then the West...the idea of Mail Order Brides was accepted. (Yes, my references are focused on America- no disrespect to other countries)

Now not all long distance relationships were business transactions ....many were true love stories which, I am sure, generations love retelling over the years to grandchildren.  Yet from the start, marriage was more of a business contract than a love one...one that entailed a true need for survival and unfortunately... the label of property....

So why all of this rambling....Well, in this engaging tale, we have two people who truly believe that marriages almost never work when based on the notion of love... Both had parents who destroyed any belief with their examples...causing our main characters to have a cynical view.

What causes them to come together is a set of circumstances putting in motion a profile from our military man stating plain and simple his desire for a wife...a partner to be there without all the fluff, lies or games usual dating employs...He has his reasons for deciding after his tours of duty to change his focus...but he has decided to see if by being honest to the point of blunt...he might find a like minded gal.  If she happened to be easy on the eyes... a huge plus.

Our gal is at the turning point of frustration... she feels trapped in her job, catering to spoiled society women looking for the next fashion trend. She lives in Seattle and the cost of living is extreme. She has a job where most of the pay is commission... meaning she has a very difficult time knowing if her bills will be paid. Due to that harsh family divorce, she made some behavior decisions which impacted the course of her life...like leaving high school without the necessary diploma. This more than anything has caused her to feel trapped in her work...She has sent out a few resumes to find an additional gig but no responses.

It is after a truly horrific day, she goes on line and sees this ad for a dating site with our guy's face. She is a little tipsy... feels some sort of connection but then figures he probably is a model....She goes to the site and completes the profile, laughing as she does.

Meanwhile our guy is stunned by the responses to his profile; he has haters saying he has no respect for women, etc...but overwhelmingly, he has so many responses, he is shocked. He goes through them all, setting aside a few. On the flip side, his profile is sent to our gal....with her being stunned he is actually a real person. She reads his profile with his blunt statement of how he is looking for a wife...someone honest, doesn't play games and willing to commit to a military life.

Something rings true and she sends him a clear response... wishing him well in his endeavors even if he doesn't respond back to her.

This book took a very straight forward idea and captured exactly how a person can feel when meeting long distance online. The way the relationship develops rang true for me...if done right, communications of written words can cause the blood pressure to boil in anticipation...reducing the person to feel like a teenager's first love experience.

I happened to like both of these characters; the emotional hurdles each needed to overcome made sense and when they became a couple, you rooted for them. If you want a little something- something to read and put a smile on your face, this is a good way to do it.

A gifted copy was provided by author/publisher for an honest review.