Plus Size Women Mail-Order Brides -Cancelled upon Arrival: Rejected Brides, Heavenly Humor, and the Birth of the 1890s Mail-Order Husbands Club

Plus Size Women Mail-Order Brides: Cancelled Upon Arrival
Faith-Based Historical Romance · Book Club Edition
By Cherry Hargrove

When eight certified graduates of Fannie Farmer's famous Boston Cooking School board a westbound train, they expect to meet the husbands who sent for them. Instead, they meet a telegram. "Contracts cancelled upon arrival."

What begins as heartbreak turns into holy humor in this uproarious historical novel about faith, flour, and female resilience in the 1890s.

Ruby Mae Carter, Naomi Two Feathers, Mae Ling Wong, Pearl Ann Johnson, Betsy June Hollister, Jo Harper, Hattie Lou Dawson, and Carrie Baptiste—better known as The Bakers Eight—arrive in the dusty town of Bear Creek with rolling pins, certificates, and an unshakable belief that God is not through with them yet.

When the sheriff reads the telegram aloud, accusing them of deceit and breach of promise, the women just smile. Ruby Mae thanks him kindly and declares, "Gentlemen, our dough will rise higher than your disbelief."

While the bachelors sulk and the holiness ladies gossip, the Bakers Eight buy a crumbling boardinghouse with twenty-five rooms and three acres of weeds. Within weeks, those same acres bloom with laughter, biscuits, and revival songs. Denied credit at the general store, they build their own supply line. Shunned by the church women, they pray right on the lawn. When the saloon girls come, they bake for them too—because grace is for everyone.

But the real showstopper comes when the jealous bachelors march them into a crowded courtroom, demanding damages, reputation, and monthly compensation for "emotional distress." The Bakers Eight, dressed in aprons and prayer, stand their ground. The traveling judge bangs his gavel and asks for evidence. There is none—only rumors, yeast, and holy laughter. He dismisses the case with a wave of his hand and a crumb of their cornbread.

From that day, the Bakers Eight decide to start something new: a Christian Correspondence Society for Mail-Order Grooms. If men could order wives, women of faith could certainly pray for husbands. They write letters, receive portraits, and keep the local artist busier than a wedding choir. Some suitors are doctors, some Scotsmen, all learning that faith—and love—can still rise after rejection.

Between dancing on the three acres, healing the sick, and saving runaway souls, these plus-size heroines turn gossip into glory. Their bread recipes spread faster than the rumors, and their laughter becomes legend. By the final chapter, even the holiness committee is invited to the wedding feast—each woman gifted a loaf named Grace.

Full of humor, scripture, romance, and redemption, Plus Size Women Mail-Order Brides: Cancelled Upon Arrival celebrates the God who takes what others reject and turns it into revival.

Perfect for book clubs, church reading groups, and lovers of clean historical romance with a joyful twist.

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." — Psalm 126:5
"And the bread shall rise again." — The Bakers Eight