Five Brides- A book review

I enjoyed the setting of this light reading novel. Five women end up being roommates in Chicago in 1950. Betty is local. Joan is arriving from England and Evelyn from Georgia. The other two flat mates are sisters from Minnesota who want to escape the restrictions of their Bible professor father. City life holds excitement and new freedom.

The author reserves space in the story for each girl’s history and personality, however developing five characters doesn’t allow for extensive background on each individual. The information is sufficient enough to help us appreciate the unique challenges each one encounters.

Buying a wedding dress together symbolizes the mutual desire of the girls to one day marry someone special.  By the end of the book, the reader has followed five romances and become marginally acquainted with five gentlemen. The courtships are sweet stories although the story lines are very predictable. Each girl approaches her faith from different levels of maturity, but the book espouses moral excellence and fits culture mores of the time period.

The author has based the book on a true story related to her by one of the original five partners who bought the wedding dress together.  This women’s experience is represented factually while the other four stories are completely fictional.  Prepare for a cozy read that will warm hearts that enjoy romance.

I received this book from Tyndale publishers in exchange for my honest review.