Mail-Order Brides of the West: Bertha

Montana Sky Series

By: Debra Holland

Narrated by: Lara Asmundson

Mail-Order Brides of the West: Bertha, a Montana Sky Series novella by NY Times and USA Today best-selling author Debra Holland

Bertha Bucholtz returns to her St. Louis home after an unsuccessful stay at the mail-order bridal agency. Her family house is overflowing with her thin, beautiful sisters and their many suitors, and shy, overweight Bertha is lost among the chaos. Even her baking skills - so praised at the agency - aren't special, for her six sisters and her mother are also excellent cooks. Desperate to be living on her own, Bertha searches for a job as a cook but with little success.

Then a letter arrives from her nemesis at the bridal agency. Shrewish Prudence Crawford, now Mrs. Michael Morgan, invites Bertha to move to Morgan's Crossing, Montana Territory and work as a cook and housekeeper at the boarding house for her husband's miners.

Upon her arrival in Morgan's Crossing, Bertha has to contend with Prudence, who seems to have mellowed - or has she? The boarding house is dirty, run-down, and full of uncouth miners. As the only single woman for miles around and a lauded cook, Bertha quickly becomes the siren of the tiny town as well as nearby Sweetwater Springs, as miners and cowboys flock to court her. Now the shy woman who had no choice of suitors has an abundance of them to pick from. She never would have dreamt having too many swains was a bigger problem than having none at all.

©2014 Debra Holland (P)2015 Debra Holland

Fantastic!

Bertha wanted to be a mail order bride. She didn’t make a match, so she took a job at Morgan’s Crossing managing a boarding house and doing the cooking. She met Howie who was a handyman for Mr. Morgan. He had been raised in an orphanage and was always in the shadows. Debra never disappoints in her very heartfelt stories. The narrator did a splendid job bringing the tale to life.

!love

This story was about people not fitting into the normal looks but being people whom also need and want love

Love finds you even when you are left behind. . .

What made the experience of listening to Mail-Order Brides of the West: Bertha the most enjoyable?

Reading the other books and wanting to know Bertha's story and how she would find love.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Howie was. He saw the beautiful woman that Bertha could not.

What about Lara Asmundson’s performance did you like?

Lara did a very good job at each character in this audible.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Prudence! Lara did a great job of showing how Prudence had changed from her book but how tough (and funny)she still was.

Any additional comments?

Debra does it again! This is the last of her Montana Brides series, for now, but I hope not for good! She does a beautiful job of bringing all the brides together along with their husbands this latest installment. What a delightful story of friendship, personal growth, and unforeseen love. Debra is a master at causing her readers to care for the people and towns that she creates. They are not merely stories in a book, but have quickly become a part of the reader's imagination! No wonder other authors have asked to continue stories about the people in Morgan Crossing, Montana through Amazon Worlds!

If you have ever been the last one to be picked on a team, you know how it feels to not really be wanted. Bertha was the last mail-order-bride to be left behind only to be sent home due to the agency's closing. Bertha's arch nemesis and fellow mail-order-bride, Prudence then informs her that there is a job opening at the mine that Prudence's new husband owns. All Bertha wants to do is bless people with her wonderful cooking and be left alone. Howie is the stable caretaker at Morgan's Crossing and does not see anything more for his life but work until he sees the new cook and boarding housekeeper, Bertha, for the first time. After that, he sees much more in his future and he plans to make Bertha part of it. Can Bertha overcome her shyness to see how much more her life can be? Can Howie persuade her that he is much more than just a mere stable "boy"? You will have to listen to find out!

More Of Bertha

I hope to hear more about Bertha and Howie soon. Such a sweet love story!

So Shy and So Sweet

Bertha, is the shyest and sweetest, yet I believe the most talented in the kitchen, of all the brides at the agency. When "Prudence" asked for her help out west to hire her as cook and manager of the cowboy mess hall, what a shock to her and everyone. Prudence has the sharpest tongue and most always directed her insults at poor Bertha. So why would Bertha even consider such an invitation?

Well, the letter was unusual for Prudence. Nice, considerate, apologetic...wait, who is this from??? Before she writes back she writes to her bride friends in Sweet Water near where Prudence went as a mail-order bride and asked them if she really had changed. When she hears back she hesitantly decides to go. Wow, things are different. Low and behold, in a short while the man who Prudence brought with her to help pick Bertha up took a shine too Bertha and her to him. Another successful, yet accidental mail-order bride happy ending.