About the Book

Book: Practically Married

Author: Karin Beery

Genre: General Market, clean fiction, women’s fiction, contemporary romance

Release Date: October 22, 2019

She moved to a new town to marry her fiancé. Instead, she’s burying him.

Ashley Johnson moved to northern Michigan to finally meet her fiancé face-to-face, but she arrived in time to attend his funeral. With no home back in Ohio, she decides to stay in what would have been their house, except his cousin Russ lives there too, and Russ has never heard of Ashley. To complicate matters, her fiancé accidentally willed her the family farm house. Eager to please everyone and desperate to disappoint no one, she proposes a marriage of convenience that could solve her and Russ’ problems, if they can get past her aunt, his sisters, and an ex-girlfriend.

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About the Author

Karin Beery grew up in a rural Michigan town where she wrote her first novel in high school. Today, she writes contemporary stories with a healthy dose of romance. When she’s not writing fiction, she’s reading, editing, or teaching it. In her free time, she enjoys being at home with her husband and fur babies watching University of Michigan football and action-adventure movies.

More from Karin

Why would two contemporary American’s agree to a marriage of convenience?

That’s what I asked myself when I sat down to write Practically Married. I love reading historical books about mail order brides and other arranged marriages, but I wanted to see if I could make that historical theme more modern (and still be believable).

That’s how Ashley and Russ came to be, and—after several revisions—I think I did it! It takes two to get married, but this is really Ashley’s story—it’s her past that inspires her future, and it’s up to her to decide where that inspiration with lead her.

The story couldn’t just be about their relationship, though. I’ve always thought it would be fun to have a big brother, so I gave Russ little sisters. And nieces and nephews. And a pie-baking mom who doesn’t like his beard (which may have been inspired my mother-in-law, who tried desperately to get my husband to shave his beard before our wedding). I also threw in some real buildings and places in northern Michigan (even though Boyne Falls is fictional). And it’s possible that some of my character names came directly from friends and other local inspirations. Practically Married isn’t only set in northern Michigan, it’s inspired by it.

Review

If you have followed my reviews for very long, you know that I love a good romance. But I also like realistic romances that don’t follow the mold of boy meets girl, they don’t really like each other but somehow fall in love and don’t realize it until one of them gets hurt and then they get married (or at least engaged) and live happily ever after.

This book almost met my criteria. I loved the banter between Russ and Ashley and everyone else in the book. The families seemed so realistic it was almost scary. And the middle was great with all of their problems and doubts. Without going spoilerish here, I’ll just say that the ending disappointed me. Everything else in the book was great until basically the last chapter.

That being said, this was a great, clean book that I would recommend for anyone who likes mail order bride stories as well as contemporary fiction.

I received a free eBook from CelebrateLit with no compulsion to write a positive review.