Blossom Street Brides by Debbie Macomber: Review

Blossom Street Brides by Debbie MacomberTitle: Blossom Street Brides
Author: Debbie Macomber
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: March 2014
Length: 336 pages
Series: Blossom Street (#10)
Audio or Book: Book
Reason for Discovery: ARC

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.





From GoodReads:

#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber has won the hearts of millions of readers with her moving and inspiring stories. Now wedding bells are ringing in the tight-knit community that gathers around A Good Yarn, a store in a pretty Seattle neighborhood. Knitters come to the store to buy yarn and patterns but somehow they leave richer in friendship and love.

Lauren Elliott has waited years for her long-term boyfriend, Todd, to propose, yet he seems more focused on his career than their relationship. When Lauren learns that her younger sister is pregnant before she herself even has an engagement ring, she feels overjoyed yet disheartened. Knowing she can’t put her future on hold, Lauren prepares to make a bold choice—one that leads her to a man she never dreamed she’d meet.

Newly married to her second husband, Max, Bethanne Scranton is blissfully in love. But with Max’s job in California and Bethanne’s in Seattle, their long-distance marriage is becoming difficult to maintain. To complicate matters, Bethanne’s cunning ex will do anything to win her back.

Lydia Goetz, too, is wonderfully happy with her husband, Brad, though lately she worries about the future of A Good Yarn. As she considers how to bring in business, she discovers that someone has beaten her to the punch. Baskets of yarn are mysteriously popping up all over town, with instructions to knit a scarf for charity and bring it into Lydia’s store. Never before has her shop received so much attention, but who hatched this brilliant plan?

As three women’s lives intersect in unexpected ways, Lydia, Lauren, and Bethanne realize that love heals every heart, and the best surprises still lay ahead.

In the latest book in the Blossom Street series, Debbie Macomber focuses on two ladies that we have seen before in this series, Lydia and Bethanne, and one new lady, Lauren. Lydia's story focuses on helping her adopted daughter who has been having nightmares and figuring out how to improve the business at her yarn store. Bethanne's story focuses on her relationship with her new husband Max. Bethanne and Max are living apart right now, because their businesses are in two separate states. This separation is difficult on the two of them. In particular, Max is getting very jealous of all of the attention Bethanne is getting from her ex-husband. Finally, Lauren is tired of watching all of her friends and family fall in love, get married, and have children. She wants to move forward with these stepping stones in her life.

As many of you know, I am a knitter. I taught myself how to knit in 2004; this is around the time that knitting became very popular. Around this time, tons of fiction books that involved knitting started getting published. I read a stack of these including The Shop on Blossom Street and A Good Yarn (books 1 and 2 in this series). I thought these books were quite adorable. I didn't realize that the series had continued until a few years later. At that point, I was immersed in graduate school and wasn't reading anything more than I had to read. When I saw Blossom Street Brides was available for review, I decided that I needed to take a walk down memory lane.

Like many romance series, you do not need to read all of the previous books in the Blossom Street series to enjoy Blossom Street Brides. If you want a pretty cozy read, you are good to go. With that said, many of the characters in this book are reoccurring characters in the series, so you are probably going to get a bit more out of the book if you are familiar with the series. One last note about this series, this is a clean romance and all of the intimate moments happen behind closed doors.

I was in the mood for something cuddly and warm and Macomber delivered. I really enjoyed having the three women being in different stages of their romantic lives. Although I do enjoy a romance novel that just focuses on two people falling in love, I also like being able to see couples dealing with the challenges that sometimes come with marriage. I found myself having a big grin on my face while reading most of the book. I really liked being able to fall back into this world of Blossom Street and the knitting shop that is this world's sun. 

I had two little qualms about this book. First, I wish that the book was just a bit longer or didn't involve three women's stories. I feel that the story lines ended up being a tad bit condensed, because Macomber wanted to tell so many stories! I loved all of the stories, I just wanted a bit more time with each of the ladies. Second, Lauren and her new guy end up having a rather large argument towards the end of the book. Each character neglected to tell the other something rather significant. At the end of the argument, Lauren is decided to be the one who was wronged. Personally, I thought Lauren was the one in the wrong, not her guy. I feel Lauren was overreacting, and the situation could have been done differently.

Overall, this was a super cute and quick read. It was nice to revisit the Blossom Street series and to have the opportunity to "live" in a town where everyone knows each other. I also liked being able to revisit my favorite fictional yarn store. 

I give this book a 4 out of 5.
Very Good

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