I really like Debbie Macomber’s holiday stories but this was not one of those. This story was o.k.. I wasn’t thrilled with the storyline nor the characters it seemed a little flat to me, like maybe the author really wasn’t all that into it herself when she was writing it. I was at the end of the story before I really began to like the characters at all and even then it was kind of like, meh. There are really two stories going on throughout the book, it begins with the owner of a bed and breakfast inn who lost her husband in the war with Iraq. She had been a young bride not married long when her husband was missing in action then found dead later. To take her mind off things she uses the insurance money to buy an inn. She, Jo Marie, is kept busy with, as she explains, living like a grandma baking cookies and working in the garden and tidying. She hires a handyman who is grumpy but tolerable and who loves her baking and spends some evenings with her playing board games. He is mysterious never giving out any info that would reveal his background. She falls for him but one day he up and tells her he has to leave. She is dealing with abandonment issues (again) and trying to convince him to stay. He won’t say why but he has to go. His reasoning is later told which could be a story in itself. The second story line is about two guests who come to stay at the B&B while they are attending their 10 year highschool reunion. Coco is coming back to wreak vengeance on an arrogant guy who used her then tossed her aside on prom night. Coco also dissed the class Science Club guy who shyly asked her to prom first. She couldn’t be bothered with him. The guy she did go to prom with took her out on a bet with his buddies. He had his way with her then wouldn’t speak to her after. For 10 years she has been seething over the humiliation and wants to get him back in front of everybody at the reunion. Funny, she didn’t do any self-reflecting on how she made Hudson, the Science Club guy feel. He was pretty much beneath her notice and someone to be ignored at the time. Her bestie Katie is coming back to try to rekindle the flame with the love of her life she lied to and dumped as the senior school year was ending. Katie and James fell madly in love when he was tutoring her in Algebra. They planned to marry once they graduated and James’s grandparents were going to pay for him to go to college. They had their lives mapped out until James’ mother took Katie aside and told her they shouldn’t marry until he graduated from college and that James’ grandparents would not pay his way if they got married. Instead of Katie talking to James and discussing the truth of their situation and working out waiting until he completed his schooling, instead she lied and said she wanted to see other people, and a bunch of other crap. Why lie if you are in love? You should work things out, compromise and make it work, but, no she lied, told him a whole bunch of untrue stuff, dumped him and even though he wrote her every day, she wouldn’t answer him and finally sent him a letter saying don’t ever write to her again (because it was too hard on her reading his heart wrenching letters, well waaa waaa waaa for her). I did not like either of these two gals. Coco thought she was better than the one poor guy who mustered all of his courage just to ask her to the prom – she didn’t care about how rude she was to him – she sure cared when she was treated rudely by her prom date, Ryan, though. Why that was too much! She wanted revenge because her feelings were hurt. But she couldn’t be bothered about the poor fellow she kicked to the curb. He was just supposed to suck it up and go away and not bother her anymore. With Katie, instead of thinking about how she just tore James’ life apart and how hard it was for him, naw, he was just supposed to get over it and come back to her once he graduated so she could tell him, April Fool, just kidding! All is well it’s all o.k. now things can go back to how they were before, hearts and flowers and fiddle-de-de. What a couple of Scarlett O’Hara’s! Being the genre it is, the story goes on and I won’t spoil the ending but, the sheer self-centeredness of these characters and the oblivious attitude of only seeing one’s own motives and disregarding the feelings of others was very off-putting for me, regardless of their motives. Debbie Macomber, I like your writing but these characters, not so much.
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