Title: Marriage Auction
Author: Audrey Carlan
Publisher/Year:  Blue Box Press 1.24.23
Length:  324 pages
Series: Marriage Auction #1

Overview

What would you do for three million dollars?

Four young women enter into a clandestine auction to be married to the highest bidders. For no less than a million dollars a year, for three years, each woman will do what it takes to secure her future. Entangled in a high-stakes game of money, lust, power, and the hope for absolution, this group of women becomes a sisterhood unlike any other.

Once chosen by a man she’s never met and agrees to marry sight unseen…there is no going back. Hidden secrets, wicked desires, fiery couplings and intense family drama are all part of the deal when you willingly enter into The Marriage Auction.

You may now kiss the bride…

My Thoughts

One never knows what to expect in a series like this but I think the snackable bites that we have throughout each of the chapters gives us a good sense of what we’re about to get ourselves into. What I almost wish though as i read through this first book of the series is that the chapters or episodes were really enabling us to get full stories for each of the couples. Alas that doesn’t happen but we get a good story regardless.

First there’s Ruby – a woman who’s from Mississippi, and needs to provide a better life for herself and her sister as they have basically nothing, and Ruby wants the world for Opal. She goes into the auction with the hopes of getting enough money to get her sister through college and then making a life for themselves somewhere amazing.

Next there’s Faith – a woman who we quickly learn has a past that is scary and one that’s forced her on the run. She’s returned to Vegas in the hopes of getting the money to support her father and her niece as they need a lot more than what life has given them. We learn though that her past is one that’s haunted and that perhaps her fiance is going to get more than he bargained for.

Last we have sisters Dakota and Savannah. Their family is one of stature in Montana – owning a large farm, but their family history is a bit muddled through the choices of their father – who’s run the farm into the ground. There’s another family in town that’s looking to buy them out – trying to take over and of course there’s a dynamic in town with these two families pitted against one another that manifests in an interesting way later in the story. But, Dakota planned to go to the auction to get money to save the farm, and her sister learned of the plans so she went as well. Shocking surprise but it appears that things will take the path that they are supposed to.

There are 2 others that we were introduced in the beginning of the story – Jade and Memphis who don’t make it through the auction but i’m sure we’ve not heard the last of them.

Onto the men – as they are just as important.

We meet Noah and Nile – two English brothers who go to the auction in order to fulfill a clause that their grandfather had on their inheritance. They were to meet and marry a woman in order to get an extra 2% share of the family business which essentially gives them the majority control of the company portfolio. They’re competitive at heart of course and this is a way to play that out while getting what they need from their family.

Next is Joel – a Greek businessman, hotelier who’s had his share of heartbreak. He was married to a woman called Alexandra who passed away, leaving him to raise their infant daughter alone. He’s got a missing piece in his life that he’s not sure how to fill especially since he’s not sure that he’ll ever be able to love someone in the way that he loved his wife and daughter. He’s only at the auction through the prodding of ‘friends’ and comes out with something that he didn’t expect.

Then we meet Sutton – he’s from a well established family in Montana – (interesting situation there right?) and he’s at the auction for a singular purpose after learning about the nature of this thing. We know that he’s a romantic at the core and it would be ironic if the marriage auction was a way for that to manifest.

Last but not least we have Erik – our viking so to speak – a man from Norway who doesn’t seem to have any bad. qualities of his own. We meet him in the tone of this golden angel of sorts but it appears that his past few years haven’t been the best. There were hints of an accident that has changed his life and who he is – bringing in what sounds like a depression, so this auction is an opportunity for him to find some happiness if he were to find the right woman.

I won’t tell you who ends up with whom in this story – but I will tell you the dynamics and the story lines are starting to heat up just as this book ends. We see kidnappings, trauma and violence and a hint of heartbreak in the form of something being uttered subconsciously that all makes for a good cliffhanger as we look towards book 2. So on that note, I have no choice but to get it and start reading again! Enjoy!