A Season to Wed: Three Winter Love Stories

(A Year of Weddings Novella collection 

Paperback, ebook, audio, audio CD  

November 3, 2015

By Cindy Kirk, Rachel Hauck and Cheryl Wyatt

• 336 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan 
• ISBN-13: 978-0310395881

Love at Mistletoe Inn by Cindy Kirk

Sometimes the road to happiness is paved with youthful mistakes.

Ten years after what she thought was her almost-wedding, Hope Prentiss discovers that the ceremony counted—and, as fate would have it, the jilted John Burke has just ridden back into town. After spending some time with John and helping plan a Christmas wedding for a mystery couple, Hope begins to wonder if she really wants a divorce . . . or a real wedding of her own.

My thoughts:  LOVE AT MISTLETOE INN is the first book in the new Year of Wedding series by Zondervan. I love Christmas novellas and so I looked forward to reading this one as soon as I saw it. I don’t quite like Ms. Kirk’s style of writing as well as I do Ms. Hunter who wrote A December Bride last year, but never-the-less, this story was engaging and held my attention, and ended with a sigh of contentment. 

I didn’t care for the aunt’s lies about what she was doing, and the moment alone as soon as John and Hope see each other made my eyebrows rise, but overall it was a good story. There isn’t a strong faith message, but the minister is active in both their lives, and I respect their decision to make their more-or-less marriage work. 94 pages.

A Brush with Love by Rachel Hauck

Revealing the beauty in other women might be Ginger Winters’s specialty—but it will take an unexpected kind of love to help Ginger see the beauty in herself.

Ginger Winters will be the “beauty-maker” for the Alabama society wedding of the decade. But when high-school crush Tom Wells shows up looking for a haircut, Ginger’s thinly veiled insecurities threaten to keep her from love once again . . . despite Tom’s best efforts.

My thoughts:  A BRUSH OF LOVE is the January book for the second year of the Year of Weddings series with Zondervan. I loved maybe half of the books in the first year of weddings and am looking forward to this second year line-up.

Rachel Hauck is a hit or miss author for me. This book was a hit. I enjoyed getting to know Ginger, loved her sense of humor and her pride in a job well done. Tom was an absolute sweetheart, riding in on his white stallion to save the day. What a man. I loved the way he handled the old scandal when that came out—and hated the way people made a big to-do out of nothing. A beautiful faith message is included in this book. Loved it. If you love contemporary romance you will want to read A BRUSH OF LOVE. 114 pages.

Serving Up a Sweetheart by Cheryl Wyatt

Meadow knows how to serve delicious food to match any wedding theme. But can she accept love when it’s served up on a silver platter?

Meadow Larson is having the mother of all Mondays when her roof caves in during a blizzard, right before the most important wedding contract of her career. Renovation contractor Colin McGrath offers to fix Meadow’s roof, even though he knows he is the last person she would accept help from.

But the more Meadow gets to know the new Colin, the more she realizes God may have something more permanent in store than a new catering kitchen.

My thoughts:  SERVING UP A  SWEETHEART starts slow, but it continues on with a steady pace. Meadow and Colin have a history and Colin will have to work overtime to even begin to breach the walls she erected.

Colin is a sweetheart, willing to step in and help Meadow with her catering, even while he remodels her house and holds down his father’s business while he goes for cancer treatments. I would’ve liked to have seen some closure to some threads that were brought up and left untrimmed.

Meadow has a lot of hurt to work through. I hurt for her. I was proud she raised above her circumstances enough to build a successful business, but saddened that she couldn’t allow herself to trust anyone except a retired teacher and her sister. I wanted to see Colin succeed in becoming her friend.

If you like Zondervan’s Wedding series, you will want to read SERVING UP A SWEETHEART. 96 pages. 

A great collection of novellas by three talented authors.