Friday, September 4, 2015

Autumn Brides: Three Novellas Review

Title: Autumn Brides
Author: Kathryn Springer, Katie Ganshert, and Beth K. Vogt
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 9780310339243
Website: http://www.Zondervan.com
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A September Bride – Annie Price gained a chance to turn over a new leaf in the town of Red Leaf.  But Deputy Jesse Kent have his suspicions regarding the new citizen.  So he made it his job to keep his eye on her.  When they both get roped into being a bride and groom for a pretend wedding, their feelings began to change.  However, will their past define them?

Despite not being October, the story was sweet as candy, with its sweet plot and sweet characters.  Everything just worked and all the characters were quite lovely.  There was no drama.  And even though the plot had a matchmaking element (which I don’t like), it was not overwhelming at all and perfectly hinted at.  Well-paced and the ending was perfect to match the length of their relationship.
    
An October Bride – Emma’s father was dying and the one thing Emma could give him was the chance to walk her down the aisle.  But she needed a groom.  When her friend, Jake, offered to be her fiancé, this was the answer to her problems.  When their true feelings began to get in the way, maybe make-believe was no longer enough.

I’m not a fan of first person’s romance because you are usually limited to just one perspective and I usually find the person to be annoying at that.  However, I liked Emma.  She was a thoughtful heroine.   And the author did a good job of giving background information to gain more insight that we would not normally get.  Like Emma does not know Jake’s innermost thoughts.  Jake was a sweetie.
 
A November Bride – After celebrating the big 3-0, Sadie’s romance life the pits.  No future husband in sight.  Guys seem more interested in their phones than having a real relationship.  The only person she can count on was her best friend, Erik.  Erik has always liked Sadie and getting out of the friends’ zone was much harder than he thought.

This story, I get.  I’m in the same pickle as Sadie and in this day of technology, dating is not the easiest thing.  Her effort to find someone to have a meaningful relationship with is a problem that anyone can understand.  Erik was funny in regards to his relationship with Sadie.  He didn’t know how to get out of the friend zone.  And I like how the author made the ending realistic.  They made decisions based upon their best interest and if they found love, even better.  The mature overtones were something I can relate to.
 
It may seem that I don’t have much to say in my review.  But the reason was that there was nothing to complain about.  There wouldn’t be anything to change.  The three stories were written well.  All the stories were well-paced, not too dramatic, great cast of characters, nice balance of romance and good plots.  Plus, it taught great life lessons.  My only remark, not complaint, would be that I found it interesting that the holidays were not mention for each respective month.  I guess it was trying to differentiate from the holiday anthologies but you wouldn’t know what month it was, unless the characters kept reminding you of it once and awhile.  Other than that, I’m digging this anthology.  There were times when you need a story that just relaxed the mind and takes you away from your day.  This was the anthology for that.   The only reason I gave it 4 stars was because I wouldn’t read it again.  But it was definitely worth the time to read it.  If you are on the fence, I would highly recommend this book.

No comments:

Post a Comment