Kelvin L. Reed’s latest novel, Midnight Sunshine, tells a very unusual story about two lonely people who fall in love before having met. Nathan is a shy American man who decides to secretly correspond with women overseas to find a wife. He falls in love with Marife (pronounced Ma-ri-FA), a beautiful, but poor Asian woman. He eventually sends for her and they set their wedding for Valentine’s Day. According to the requirements of Marife’s fiancée visa, they have just 90 days to get married or she must return to her home country, the Philippines.

"I’m a hopeless romantic. I liked the idea that they plan to get married on Valentine’s Day," Reed said. "The problem is, they really don’t know each other that well, and 90 days is not a lot of time to decide whether or not to get married."

In this era of television shows like "The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette" and "Joe Millionaire," where strangers decide whether they’ll become engaged or get married in a matter of days, can a story about three months in the lives of an engaged couple still be considered inspiring?

"Of course," replied Reed, who met his own Asian-born wife through foreign correspondence. "My wife and I have been happily married for nearly eight years. If you read the first letters we wrote to each other, it’s amazing to watch the messages change from basically, ‘Hello, my name is…’ to a year later become letters of passionate love and longing.