It’s been six years since Bethanne’s husband Grant walked out on her and their two children. Walked out to be with someone else, who he later married....moreIt’s been six years since Bethanne’s husband Grant walked out on her and their two children. Walked out to be with someone else, who he later married. Now he and his wife are divorced and it seems like Grant has realised that he’s made the biggest mistake of his life. He’s repentant and he wants Bethanne back. And he’s not making any secret of that fact.
Ruth, Bethanne’s former mother-in-law is planning to drive from their hometown in Seattle to her 50 year high school reunion in Florida. Her workaholic husband cancelled holiday after holiday and now that he’s passed on, Ruth is determined to do the cross country trip she has always dreamed of, seeing the sights she’s wanted to see for years. Her daughter Robin doesn’t approve though, thinking that Ruth is far too old (at just 68) to do such a trip. When Ruth runs into Bethanne at a cafe one day, she spills the beans about her trip. Bethanne offers to accompany her, thinking that she too could do with getting away for a while. She needs to sort out how she feels about Grant once and for all and a road trip might be a perfect way to do that.
Annie is Bethanne’s daughter. She’s 21 and although she took the break up of her parents very hard, blaming first Bethanne, and then Grant’s new wife Tiffany. Although she’s mended fences with her mother now, she’s desperate for her parents to reconcile. She has been dating Vance for three years and when he organises a special dinner for the two of them at the restaurant in the Space Needle, she’s sure he’s going to propose. However what Vance actually has to tell her is the last thing she ever expected to hear. Stunned and hurt, she decides to join the road trip with her mother and grandmother.
Each of the women have something weighing on their minds as they undertake this trip. For Ruth, it’s the chance to reconnect with Royce, her high school sweetheart she had to leave behind. She hasn’t seen him in 50 years and given the way they parted, she’s not sure how he’ll be seeing her again. For Bethanne, it’s trying to decide if she wants to restart her marriage, although Max, the handsome and mysterious biker she meets along the way is throwing a definite spanner in the works. Despite the fact that Bethanne shared twenty years with Grant and still has (and may always have) feelings for him, she just doesn’t know if she can ever trust him again. And for Annie, she’s out to enjoy herself and to make sure that Vance hears about just how much fun she’s having.
From the north west to the south east, three generations of women in a car each with emotional issues to work through.
When I was a poor university student and relying on the books my grandmother bought and passed onto me, I came to really love Debbie Macomber. Her Blossom Street novels are some of my favourites of hers and I’ve read most of them, but not all. It took me a while to remember who Bethanne was, because she was featured in the second novel, A Good Yarn which I read a good five years ago and probably only once. But once I read a little of her back story, it all came to me! In this novel we move away from Blossom Street and the store that started at all (it appears only once in the novel briefly when Bethanne stops by to purchase some yarn) for Bethanne to decide to accompany her former mother in law on the mother of all road trips. Seattle to Florida is an epic drive and although there’s lots of stops planned along the way, the addition of Annie to the mix throws all of Ruth’s careful plans up in the air.
I read this book on my laptop because it was an eGalley from NetGalley and the Kindle button is still not functioning. If it had been any other author, I might’ve not bothered but I really do enjoy these books so I gave reading on the laptop, using Adobe Digital Editions, a go. All I can say is – never again. I use my laptop a lot – all day quite often, reading blogs, using twitter, chatting to people and all sorts of other things but reading a novel was much, much different. Something about the constant scrolling and readjusting my eyes meant that I had a headache threatening behind my eyes the entire time I was reading, which was distracting. I’ll definitely be waiting until NetGalley and Amazon fix the Kindle option (which is supposed to be sometime this month) before reading any more eGalleys.
When I dived into the book, I admit, I wasn’t feeling it. Grant was irritating and I found him smarmy and although he seemed repentant, he was saying much more than he was showing it. His second marriage had failed and suddenly he’d realised that his first hadn’t been so bad after all. So he was laying on the charm thick with Bethanne, taking her out to dinner (supposedly to discuss their son’s upcoming marriage) to old favourites, trying to recapture the magic with use of nostalgia. And Bethanne, who had been wiped out totally by Grant’s betrayal was wavering, overwhelmed by their twenty year history. I found myself getting annoyed, furious at Grant for thinking it would just be that easy to walk back into a life he had left behind, and wanting to shake Bethanne. When Annie was added to the trip and promptly started changing things to suit herself, dismissing all Ruth’s plans and making new ones, I nearly set the book aside for a while. But I pushed on because the idea of the road trip itself was really grabbing me.
And boy am I glad I did. I should’ve known not to underestimate an author I enjoy so much. She pulled me right back in with the introduction of Max and his biker buddies and the side trips they ended up taking proved to be interesting and enjoyable to read. Although Bethanne’s see-sawing back and forth about Grant did get on my nerves a bit, I at least came to better understand how she felt. I’ve only been married a very short time (less than a month at my time of writing this!) so it’s very hard for me to imagine the dissolving of a twenty year marriage and all the complicated feelings that might go along with that. It would be very hard for me to get past the shattering betrayal, but I’m revenge and anger motivated, I’m not much of a forgiver! Bethanne is definitely much more forgiving and understanding than I would ever be!
Debbie Macomber once again delivers a very heartwarming and sweet novel driven by really wonderful characters. Ruth is a feisty lady and quite enjoyable as she makes her way to her high school reunion, worried about the man whose heart she broke when he was just a boy. Bethanne was easily my favourite, it was her story I was most invested in, the triangle between her, repentant ex-husband Grant and the mysterious but deep Harley rider Max. Annie seemed very immature and I think she has a lot of growing up to do – her story was left unresolved at the end of the novel so I’ve no doubt she’ll get her own starring role in a Blossom Street novel sometime in the future.
If you’ve enjoyed the previous novels in this series, then I definitely think you’ll like this one too. And if you haven’t read any of the Blossom Street novels but you like comtemporary women’s fiction that is a little about finding romance and true love, but really a lot about women who would never normally meet forging friendships (through a little yarn shop) then you really should try them, staring with #1, The Shop on Blossom Street. It’s cheesy yes, but somehow it manages to be just the right amount of cheesy – cute and really well written, rather than saccharine sweet.(less)
Libby Morgan has never really gotten over losing her mother to cancer when she was just a teenager. She’s made her whole life about her mother’s wishe...moreLibby Morgan has never really gotten over losing her mother to cancer when she was just a teenager. She’s made her whole life about her mother’s wishes for her – work hard, be the best you can be. Now Libby is an attorney for a well respected law firm and she works all the hours under the sun. When she’s called in for a meeting with one of the partners, Libby is thrilled. She expects to be told that she’s being made a partner…but instead Libby is informed that times are tough and she is being laid off. Her former boss has some words of advice for her – get out there and live her life. Make friends, have a life away from work. Otherwise she will regret it.
Smarting from the dismissal, Libby struggles to find another job and is out of work for months. Meeting an old uni friend for lunch one day, she goes along with her to the yarn shop across the road, A Good Yarn. Run by Lydia Goetz, the shop sells all sorts of yarn and often holds classes for the local community. Libby finds herself chatting to Lydia’s daughter Casey and Casey’s friend Ava and agrees to help them knit hats for the preemie babies at Seattle General.
Libby might not have a job but she suddenly finds her life full in ways that she never previously imagined. She knits hats for the preemie babies and finds herself volunteering in the nursery, to hold them and sing to them. She meets Dr Phillip Stone, a handsome neonatal surgeon and begins a budding friendship. She enjoys joining a gym and reconnecting with her friend Robin and has dreams about opening her own firm, a small one where the workload will be less. And most of all she forms a special bond with Ava when it’s clear that Ava is in trouble and needs help and support.
Then Libby experiences heartbreak, which influences her choices and before she knows it, all of her good work has been undone. Will she be able to find that perfect balance of life and work or is everything that she’s come to hold dear to her incompatible with her working life?
I like the Blossom Street books. I’ve been reading them for a while now – they remind me of my Nan who got me started on the first one. She used to supply all my books. She buys widely but she reads only once and then passes them on. When I was a poor Uni student, she kept a steady flow of new books crossing my door. When she told me she had a book she thought I’d like about a wool shop, I rolled my eyes. Daggy, much? But I promised to try it and even though these are saccharine sweet, I found myself immersed in the little Blossom Street community. I still continue to read them and this one is a rather nice installment.
Libby is a textbook workaholic – she’s already had one marriage fail because of her devotion to her job, her single minded focus on making partner and the fact that her husband couldn’t ever see her compromising She has almost no friends, no life outside of work. She lives in a lovely condo but she hasn’t bothered to decorate it. Take away her work and Libby is left with almost nothing – she has to rebuild her life from the ground up, finding herself some hobbies, some friends, things to do and fill her time. She’s never particularly had many social skills – she thinks one of the reasons that she was let go was because she didn’t bring in many accounts. She works on this area almost without noticing as she begins meeting people and forming friendships, even finding some potential professional connections. Libby grew much more likable as the novel went on although there was always a bit of a tenseness to her, like she was never quite fully relaxed. She didn’t seem to realise how much stock she’d placed in her mother’s words to her, or how much pressure she’d piled upon herself to live up to them.
Watching Libby unwind, make friends and come to care for things other than work was rather satisfying but there were still times when I wanted to shake a bit of sense into her, especially when it came to her budding friendship/relationship with Dr Phillip Stone. Libby does her best to sabotage this several times despite the fact that it should have been ridiculously easy. I think the romance element could’ve been a little stronger – I know it’s not the primary focus of the Blossom St novels but it’s always a rather strong secondary plot and I would’ve liked a little more work put into developing the chemistry between Phillip and Libby rather than just having it magically exist. I thought the way in which Macomber developed the bond between Libby and Ava had a much defter touch. Ava’s was a difficult story line to balance, it’s a rather contentious subject and in a series where religion can creep in, it was fantastic to see that the entire novel was without one ounce of judgement. I do appreciate the way that Macomber played it out as well. There was a chance it looked like going down an unbelievable and slightly ethically wrong path but it was swiftly righted and although that caused Libby pain, it was probably a much better, more realistic and more appropriate way to end the story.
A very solid contribution to a series that I have a soft spot for.(less)
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