Spirit of the Season by Fern Michaels 288 pages
When Joy Preston's grandmother passes, her will states that Joy is to inherit Nana's bed and breakfast known as Heart and Soul. A quaint little inn nestled in a small town in North Carolina, that comes to bustling life every holiday season especially Thanksgiving and Christmas when the town comes together to compete in who can make the best (according to the judges) gingerbread sculpture, the theme changes from year to year, and who can put up the best Christmas display, etc. Each B&B in town tries to outdo the other from their in-house offerings, to glorious over the top meals, etc. It is great fun but also loads of work and stress not to mention how ticky some of the elder ladies get in getting down to the nitty gritty and trying to disparage their competitors! The up and down side of small town life. Joy grew up here, but while on a trip with her highschool class to Colorado, she fell in love with that state, it's mountains, skiing, beauty so when it came time for college, though her grandmother did her best to get her to stay home and attend college in North Carolina, Joy had her heart set on the University of Colorado and couldn't wait to get back there. Now with her father's passing at 47 and Nana's passing, Joy can't understand why Nana would give the successful B&B to her and not her mother. Of course after her father passed her mother started going on round the world cruises (20 so far) and didn't stay home with her mother to help tend the B&B, though, she loved it and enjoyed all the work it took to keep it working wonderfully. Nana also put in her will that Joy has to come back and live in the town for 6 months and run the B&B. Joy is beside herself. She is a very successful CEO of her own company, she loves her life with her friends in Colorado. Why would Nana do this to her? Was she senile? Maybe she can figure this out with the local lawyer handling Nana's will, the hot, sexy lawyer with the voice that makes her want to melt...It is a good story, very visual as Fern Michaels paints word pictures for her readers. I didn't care for her main character, Joy Preston, but I guess her angst was all about having to pull up stakes from the place she thought she was happiest in. Still she can get a little annoying. I recommend this story to anyone, any age that enjoys holiday stories and especially holiday romance stories. If this isn't a Hallmark movie already, it could be.
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