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The Christmas Keepsake–second chances
The Christmas Keepsake
by Annie Rains
Mallory Blue has been a caregiver for most of her life. She tried to fill in for her mother Daisy when she left Mallory and her little sister Maddie in search of a better life as an actress. Her grandmother Nan had taken both girls in quite willingly, but Mallory tried to do everything right to cause less trouble for her grandparents. Now, a nurse, Mallory is burning the candle at both ends trying to work extra shifts at the hospital to be able to afford to keep Nan in a memory home, visit Nan who rarely remembers her, and fulfill her promise to Nan to keep her beloved theater running.
Hollis and Mallory had an attraction to each other in high school, but he had a hard time letting anyone love him. With a bad home life, he became a juvenile delinquent bouncing from one foster family to another. Matt and Sandy took him in when he was close to aging out of foster care. They treated him as their own child, and he learned the construction business from Matt as well as how to be a responsible man. Hollis and Mallory have trust issues, expecting to be left behind by those they count on.
With Nan’s memory declining, she gives Mallory a box that contains “ornaments,” odd keepsakes that are to be hung on the Christmas tree in a certain order. She gives her a journal to go with it that tells a story from Nan’s life explaining the significance of each object. In this way she answers questions about her own life as well as Mallory and Maddie’s that she realizes she will not always be able to answer due to her failing memory.
The Christmas Keepsake has a current day story to tell, and it meshes that story with the past happenings for Nan, Daisy, Mallory, and Maddie. This structure was a clever way to tell Nan’s story and give Mallory and the reader a better understanding of the circumstances that brought them all to that place in that time. There are also themes of overcoming disabilities and dog training, both of which enhanced the span of the book. I enjoyed The Christmas Keepsake, but it did bog down for me a bit in the middle. It picked up again in its ending, and I especially liked the way the author tied everything down for the characters in the last pages and in the Epilogue.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Fiction, Romance
Notes: #2 in the Love in Bloom series but could be read as a standalone. I actually did not remember that I had read (and loved) #1 in the series, The Finders Keepers Library, which shows how independent the two books are. There is an overlap of characters, but the reader won’t miss out by not having that connection. “Bloom” is the name of the town.
Publication: October 7, 2025—Forever (Grand Central Publishing)
Memorable Lines:
Maybe my best wasn’t good enough. Maybe I should have done things differently. All I can say is that life doesn’t have a dress rehearsal. It’s all improv on one big stage.
Back then, he wasn’t even aware of the reasons behind his actions. All he knew was that he had a crater-size void in his heart that couldn’t be filled no matter how hard he tried. He missed the father he never had. He missed the mother who was never going to nurture and love him the way he needed to be.
Life is a lot like theater. Full of unexpected plot twists, moments of high drama, and the occasional intermission. And, if it’s a good play, there’ll be a happy ending.
Before We Were Us–romance in New Hampshire
Before We Were Us
by Denise Hunter
From the moment Lauren Wentworth arrived at Pinehaven Resort and met Jonah Landry, they were at odds with each other. Lauren was hired to temporarily manage the small resort of eight cabins to help out the owners for 9 months as they transition into retirement. It is an opportunity to prove her worth to Olivia, the owner of Glitter, a top of the line corporate event planning organization in Boston.
Lauren, a product of the social services foster system, had a hard life growing up and feels she has a lot to prove. She is creative, a hard worker, and talented. Jonah is the son of the resort owner and is finishing a college degree in business with an eye to take over the resort when his parents retire. He has personal baggage also as his former girlfriend broke his heart to move to New York City. He sees Lauren as another “princess,” but is surprised to find her quite capable and unafraid to get her hands dirty.
An accident waylays their growing romance as Lauren loses her memory of four months of her life and their relationship. Jonah has to begin wooing her again.
A strong character-driven romance, Before We Were Us, moves back and forth between current events and what happened in the relationship before the accident. The reader is invited along as Lauren and Jonah struggle to find the compromise that will lead them both to a happy future. Will it be together or will Lauren pursue her dream job in Boston while Jonah manages Pinehaven Resort in New Hampshire preserving his family’s heritage? Does either one of them have sacrificial love for the other?
A nice touch and integral to the story is the renovation of an old barn on the property that Lauren wants to turn into an event center for weddings and other events. Imagine a rustic barn with fresh paint, fairy lights, and tulle. The barn project is just one of many successful ideas Lauren has to bring more money into the resort. Another fun part of the book is Lauren’s adopting of a stray dog, part Jack Russell. She names him Graham (Cracker) and he adores her.
I enjoyed this book and wanted the best for Lauren and Jonah. At times Lauren and Jonah seem “hard” and unfeeling, but there are reasons for their distancing themselves. There are certain plot lines that I would have enjoyed the author exploring more—Lauren’s mother; Carson, an intern at the hospital; and the community opening of the barn event center on New Year’s Eve.
Also, both characters have friends who support them, and it would be interesting to learn more about them.
Jonah proves himself to be a great listener and uses that skill in choosing gifts for Lauren. Have as much patience as Jonah and in the epilogue you will discover the sensitive meaning behind the book’s title.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Fiction, Romance, Women’s Fiction
Notes: standalone; clean
Publication: September 10, 2024—Thomas Nelson
Memorable Lines:
What if she was no good at this job? At life? What if she wasn’t meant for anything more than the trailer park from which she’d come? What if all the people who’d told her she wouldn’t amount to anything had actually been right?
“Sweetheart…we need to talk.” A weight dropped like a cement block in her stomach. Nothing good ever began with those words. She should’ve known better. This thing between them was too good to be true.
The feelings roiling through her were as powerful as a riptide. But undertows were dangerous and so was love. It was seductive and spellbinding. It held the power to drag you away from what mattered most.
Silent Nights Are Murder–finding family
Silent Nights Are Murder
by Libby Klein
For once, Poppy McAllister is not the one to find the dead body, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be dragged into a murder investigation. Her cop friend Amber convinces Poppy to go undercover at her ex-boyfriend’s restaurant because the body was discovered in Tim’s walk-in freezer. In a previous book in the Poppy McAllister Mystery Series, Poppy decided to drop Tim in favor of a relationship with the handsome barista Gia who thinks she is gorgeous. Now as Poppy tries to help, she discovers that Tim’s new work and personal partner Gigi is pregnant with a due date set 9 months after Tim and Poppy broke up!
It is hard for Poppy to gain the trust of the restaurant staff and sort out the lies they tell. Most of them seem to be hiding some secrets. As Poppy explains to a frustrated Tim, “a killer will lie about their alibi.” Someone seems to have been messing with the books and the inventory also.
There are so many plots going on all at once. When Poppy was almost nine, her mother dropped her off with promises to return for her. She does—thirty-five years later—and checks into the Butterfly Wings B & B. Poppy and her Aunt Ginny, who helped raise her, spend time trying to figure out what Iris wants and how to get rid of her. Meanwhile, Figaro, Poppy’s cat, does battle with Christmas ornaments that appear to be birds, complete with feathers (until Figaro get ahold of them). Guests at the B&B enjoy a decoration daily murder scene villa setup by an unknown person at the inn.
Aunt Ginny’s friends, the Biddies, add hilarious fun as there might be a wedding coming up and they want to be a part of it. Aunt Ginny, as usual, has some wack-a-doodle plans. In this case, the Christmas season calls for some competition. Aunt Ginny is determined to have both the prize winning recipe and the house with the most Christmasy ambiance (think National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, but on steroids).
Gia’s son Henry is adorable and refuses to tell anyone what he is asking Santa for. As you read Silent Nights Are Murder, I think you’ll know what he wants for Christmas, but will Santa be able to deliver?
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: 1. #9 in the Poppy McAllister Mystery series. It could be read as a standalone, but would be enjoyed more if some of the earlier books were read first.
2. seven gluten free recipes for Christmas goodies
Publication: September 24, 2024—Kensington
Memorable Lines:
There were three seasons to obsess about the weather. Tourist season—when guests considered it a personal failure on my part if it rained during their vacation. Hurricane season—because my creditors don’t care about safety cancellations, they just want to be paid. And Christmas season—because I was delusional enough to want snow like I was living in a Bing Crosby movie. Irving Berlin had set sixty percent of the country up for annual disappointment.
Flashing police-car lights blazed through the night, and the men tried to look like three normal guys waiting for a table. They looked as normal as a trio of gorillas in hoop skirts.
He ran his hands through his hair and looked like he was about to fry up a conniption and serve it with a big side of meltdown.
education pathways 