GRR Reviews India: Bride of Indiana by Ashley Merrick

India: Bride of Indiana is a mail order bride story that featured a strong FMC trying to fit into an existing family while fighting off unwanted attention from another woman.

To recap, India lost her job when her textile factory burned down (by its owner to cover up his embezzling) and with no local jobs, she embarked on being a mail order bride to a man in South Bend Indiana. Blake is a widower with two young children, whose wife perished in a fire and he himself suffered burns when he tried to rescue her. He did not expect to ever love again, but his children need a mother, and he is rich, one of the few coachbuilders with national reputation. India arrived to find the town welcome, except for Blake's mother Kay, who had always hoped for her son to fall in love with her best friend's daughter, Olivia (whom Blake cannot stand). And Olivia is not beyond trying to seduce a married man, not that India would have given up on Blake in any case... As the two slowly discovered that both are drawn to doing charity work around town (he being a secret santa, she started a pantry for the poor in the church), Blake's defenses started melting away...

While the ending is a foregone conclusion, there really isn't much keeping the couple apart other than a LOT of self-inadequacies and some misunderstandings that ballooned into something more. Still, it was enjoyable to read, just not extraordinarily so.

Category: historical western

Primary Plot: Mail Order Bride Tries to Fit into Family of Father and Two kids... and a disapproving mother-in-law.

Tropes: mail order bride, triangle, evil in-laws

Overall Rating:  3/5