FTC Disclosure Statement: I received this book to review. The opinions shared here are 100% mine.   This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. 

There are many childhood memories that come to mind now that my kids are school age.  They get a real kick out of learning that our video games were the old Atari type.  Playing on the Gameboy meant investing some hard-earned piggy bank money in batteries.  When my kids play Minecraft, it reminds me a bit of the old style games, what with the pixelated images and all.  If your kids are into Minecraft, too, you can pick up a cool new tee for summer in this sale Crazy 8 — the tops are only $14.88!  My kids might think twice about making fun of my Atari games after that.  Well, probably not.

Stickers used to be so much fun when I was a kid.  Did you have a sticker album?  Mine was full of scratch and sniff, puffy, glittery, velvety, and all other kinds of stickers.  It went with  me everywhere.  When did iPads take over for sticker albums?!  Those were the good old days.

I also loved playing with my friends on the playground during recess.  Of course, there were the fun little rhymes that still stay with me (even if I can’t remember what I wore yesterday).  You know the old jumprope song – Love comes first, second comes marriage.  Well, A Sensible Arrangement defies that rule.  This book outlines a window in the lives of Marty and Jack, two 30-somethings who have been widowed and now need a companion, although for very different reasons.

This title was Tracie Peterson’s 100th book (hooray for her!!!) and it really stood out to me as one of her better novels.  Although the mail-order bride theme is almost ubiquitous in Christian romance, at least in the past five years or so, A Sensible Arrangement has a better storyline than the others I’ve read.  I liked the fact that the two main characters were middle aged, so they weren’t walking into the marriage with rose-colored glasses.  The arrangement is the foundation of the book although there’s enough other interest to carry the story.  They each had a reason for getting married, neither of them ranking love at the top.  Jack was trying to pacify the higher-ups at the bank where he worked. Marty was anxious to leave her loneliness behind.  I can’t imagine being willing to marry a complete stranger, though!   Having lived near Denver, I was interested to learn more about what Colorado might have been like a century ago.  The history that was sprinkled into the story was quite enriching.  Bravo for Tracie Peterson; I look forward to many more late nights reading her books!

As for childhood memories, I think the last one is the ability to stay up all night doing whatever I want, then sleeping in all day.  Maybe I should ask for that for Mother’s Day?