Silk & Burlap — Vanessa Carvo

A Rough Hewn Cowboy - A woman decides to become a mail order bride but goes west under subterfuge â€" she already has a man lined up even though she will be supposedly matched up with a cowboy by the company who is paying her way. When she gets there, she can't find him, so settles for an unappetizing but un-assigned man. Things do go downhill rather fast from that point onward.

Delivery Refused? is a novella about a lonely California rancher who requests a mail order bride, but considers sending her back when she tells him adamantly that she doesn't want to get married yet -- or ever.

Forging A Family â€" The Fat Man & The Thin Woman - A woman stricken with TB, or consumption, decides the only way to have a chance of getting better is to move to a state with a dry climate, and then marry a man. She knows he is very overweight, but does not tell him when they correspond that she is sick with a possibly contagious disease. He, on the other hand, does tell her that he has challenges; namely cutting out his drinking and gambling and losing at least a hundred pounds if he wants a family, and that he needs a woman who can help him achieve his goals.

Irene Jumps From One Life To Another - A prostitute from Liverpool decides to try for a new life in America by becoming a mail order bride to a sheriff in Texas, but both the man who escorts her there and her life when she meets her future husband, are a far cry from what she thought they would be. Some harsh conditions are depicted in this novella.