Sweet Carolina Morning
Willow Hill, #2
Willow Hill, #2
by Susan Schild
Releasing
August 2nd 2016
Lyrical
Lyrical
Life down South just got a whole lot sweeter in Susan
Schild’s new novel about a woman whose happily-ever-after is about to
begin…whether she’s ready for it or not.
From The Book Junkie Reads . . . Sweet
Carolina Morning (Willow Hill, #2) . . .
Obstacles, road blocks, family & friends. This should be one of the happiness times in a woman's life, Linny. She has found love again and wants to share her life with him, but her past, his son, his ex-wife, his family and a few friends all have found their way into a wedding planning that has turned into a nightmare for Linny. This was a sweet, warm, sometime humorous glimpse into a woman's life after being widowed, not once but twice, close to forty, returned back to her home town, fallen in love again and planning a wedding. Along with all the headaches that go along with it.
Linny has more issues that she can deal with and a wedding to plan. The least of her worries at this time should be picking out a wedding dress or at least the color. Family, exs, friends, and life just interferes. There was love, humor, honesty, every day life, and in it all was Linny's life. Finding love again was hard. Finding acceptance within in that love when a child was involved proves harder. Finding acceptance in their life when the ex wants to keep stepping proves to be a tipping point at times.
I enjoyed visiting down south and the charm that was found there. The love, drama, humor, sweet southern comfort, and the all life has to through your way made this women's fiction a keeper. Moving on to see what else is in store for Willow Hill series.
**This ARC was provided via NetGalley
in exchange for an honest review.**
Willow Hill series:
Linny’s
Sweet Dream List – Willow Hill, #1
Sweet
Carolina Morning – Willow Hill, #2
Blurb
Finally, just shy of forty years old, Linny Taylor is living the life of her dreams in her charming hometown of Willow Hill, North Carolina. The past few years have been anything but a fairy tale: Left broke by her con man late-husband, Linny has struggled to rebuild her life from scratch. Then she met Jack Avery, the town’s much-adored veterinarian. And she’s marrying him.
Everything should be coming up roses for Linny. So why does she have such a serious case of pre-wedding jitters? It could be because Jack’s prosperous family doesn’t approve of her rough-and-tumble background. Or that his ex-wife is suddenly back on the scene. Or that Linny has yet to win over his son’s heart. All these obstacles—not to mention what she should wear when she walks down the aisle—are taking the joy out of planning her wedding. Linny better find a way to trust love again, or she might risk losing the one man she wants to be with—forever…
Finally, just shy of forty years old, Linny Taylor is living the life of her dreams in her charming hometown of Willow Hill, North Carolina. The past few years have been anything but a fairy tale: Left broke by her con man late-husband, Linny has struggled to rebuild her life from scratch. Then she met Jack Avery, the town’s much-adored veterinarian. And she’s marrying him.
Everything should be coming up roses for Linny. So why does she have such a serious case of pre-wedding jitters? It could be because Jack’s prosperous family doesn’t approve of her rough-and-tumble background. Or that his ex-wife is suddenly back on the scene. Or that Linny has yet to win over his son’s heart. All these obstacles—not to mention what she should wear when she walks down the aisle—are taking the joy out of planning her wedding. Linny better find a way to trust love again, or she might risk losing the one man she wants to be with—forever…
Buy Links:
from Chapter 1: Trouble in the Stepmother Hood
Though it was February,
the galley kitchen at her future husband’s old farmhouse was steamy and hot,
but Linny hardly noticed. Peering at the pages on the counter, she pushed back
up her nose the reading glasses she'd had to borrow from Jack and
double-checked to make sure she’d not left out any key ingredients. Why had she
printed the recipe in ten-point font?
Tonight’s menu came from
a website she’d found called Recipes for
Picky Eaters, and she hoped it was a winner. She
shook her head, chagrined at Jack’s reaction to the first possible menu she’d
suggested. He’d kept that pleasant smile on his handsome face, but his eyebrows
had shot up. Once they’d come back down to
normal, his veto had been so diplomatic. “Darlin’, the mountain trout, braised Brussels sprouts, and beet salad sounds
tasty, and I hope you cook them for me real soon, but
eleven-year-old boys’ tastes tend to be more… well, mainstream.”
Blowing back a stray
lock of hair, she turned on the oven light and peeked inside. The neat rows of
crusted chicken breasts were browning nicely in their casserole dish home. The
side dishes—creamy-looking mac and cheese and green bean casserole topped with
onion rings—were both bubbling gently. She breathed in cooking smells and was
transported back to Sunday suppers at the farm when Nana and Paw-Paw were still
alive. Sighing, she felt a wash of safety, contentment, belonging. Those were
just the feelings she wanted to infuse in this new little family.
Sliding into the chair,
Linny admired the old kitchen table and touched the swirls of the tiger oak. It
felt warm, solid. How many other families had sat around it and shared their
lives over meals? She pictured her and her two men gathered around like in a
scene from the Hallmark Channel, talking and laughing about their day. Jack and
Neal would lavishly compliment her on her cooking, she’d blush, wave them off,
and act as though it was no big deal. “I just threw the meal together,” she’d
trill.
Trouble was, it was a
big deal, and not just because Linny was just learning to cook. She rubbed her
chin and thought about it. This morning, Jack had sat his son down after they’d
cleaned up from their pancake breakfast and told him that he and Linny were
marrying in the summer. Linny had just sat beside Jack and let him do the
talking but felt a stab of sadness as she saw Neal’s face fall. Forlorn. He
looked forlorn. When he asked in a trembling voice, “So, you and Mom aren’t
ever getting back together?” she thought her heart might break. He still held
out hope for his family to be whole again, the way it used to be. Never mind
that Neal’s mother, Vera, had already remarried the year before. Though Linny
and Jack had been dating officially since October, she’d only just started
spending a lot of time with the two of them. Jack hadn’t wanted to introduce
her to his son until they knew they were serious, so Linny was only just
getting to know the young man.
Linny got a nervous flip
in her stomach when she thought about becoming a stepmother. She’d gone
thirty-eight years without children, and in a few short months, she’d be
slipping into this new role without even a course or certificate. Linny got up
and made herself a mug of Chamomile tea. Calming, the label said. She sat back down and blew on the tea to cool
it and tried to quell the thrum of the squadron of butterflies that was revving
up in the pit of her stomach.
Staring out the window,
she thought of the other scenarios she’d been imagining, in living color and
the minutest detail. If she messed up in this new job, he’d be that troubled
teen with the shaved head who sold pot and lived in their basement after he
dropped out of school in tenth grade. Neal would end up being the inebriated
driver of a speeding car full of kids who drove them into a tree after leaving
an unchaperoned party. Her heart banged as she tried to obliterate the image
she’d seen in this morning’s News and
Clarion -the mangled
wreckage of a barely recognizable car driven by a teen going the wrong way on
I-40. He’d killed himself and badly injured a whole vanload of kids on the way
home late from a church youth group retreat. Pulling out her phone, she
scrolled through her emails as the good smells wafted from the oven and felt
her shoulders relax as she reread Mary Catherine's note. Nice to have a best
friend who practiced family law.
Under the subject line, Impending Stepmother Hood, her friend
wrote:
You asked for advice on your new parenting gig.
Remember, a lot of divorced couples and blended families don’t talk civilly and
don't act in the best interests of children. In my practice, we serve more of
the send-the-kids-home-dirty and talk-trash-about-the-stepmother crowd. What
not to do may be more useful than what to do.
Another disclaimer: I’m no expert on teenage
boys just because I had one. Remember just a few months back, my
nineteen-year-old almost got a DUI on a bike. Boys are knuckleheads between the
ages of eleven and twenty-four. Your nerves will fray no matter how hard you
try to be a good mother—or, harder yet, stepmother—but I will tell you what I
know.
Meet me
for a quick breakfast 7:00 a.m. Wednesday at Jumpin’ Joe’s Bean House?
Blowing out a sigh of
relief, Linny replied, Perfect. She
let herself sink back into the chair for a moment. Thank goodness for Mary
Catherine.
Glancing at the clock,
she rose and fretted as she checked the timer. Last weekend’s cookout at her
place had been a bust. Neal had picked at his food, claiming he “'just wasn’t
hungry.”' What American boy didn’t like grilled hamburgers and French fries
made from scratch—from the actual potato? Could it be that he didn’t like her?
She tried to dismiss the thought. How could he not like her when she was
already so fond of him? He was whip smart, mostly well mannered, sensitive, and
had an offbeat sense of humor that would catch her when she wasn’t expecting it
and make her burst out laughing.
Tonight would be different,
she decided, setting flatware firmly at the three places at the table. After
grilling Jack extensively about his son’s food likes and dislikes, she’d
scoured the internet for the perfect menu. If she was finally going to embark
on this mother thing, she sure as heck was going to excel at it. She’d do the
whole shebang: soccer weekends, volunteering on field trips, deep talks about
life. She’d waited long enough for this little family, and now that she’d got
it, dang it, she was going to do it right. The water glasses spilled over as
she set them too firmly down on the table.
Jack and Neal were still
at the barn with the mare that was about to foal. She picked up the
walkie-talkie and pressed the button. “Supper’s ready, men.”
The line crackled. “Be
right up,” Jack said cheerfully. “I’m hungry as a bear.”
She’d just finished
putting on a slick of lip gloss as they clattered into the room, bringing with
them a wash of fresh February air. Her heart still skipped a beat when Jack
gave her a boyish grin, and she longed for a kiss, but there was sweet-faced
Neal, right on his heels. She felt a pang of regret. She and Jack had talked
about it and agreed on the rule of no smooching or PDAs in front of the boy
right on the brink of becoming a man. She felt wistful. Leaning against the
stove, she smiled as she took them in, amazed at how much commotion the two
could make just walking into a room, with their thudding boots, unzippering
coats, biceps punching, and easy laughter. Linny raked back her hair with her
fingers. Man, her too quiet life had sure changed.
Buy Links:
Author InfoSusan Schild writes wholesome and sunny Southern fiction. She likes stories about charming men, missing money, adventuresome women, sweet dogs, and happily ever afters at any age.
Susan is a wife and a stepmother. She enjoys rummaging through thrift store for treasures like four dollar cashmere sweaters and amateur watercolor paintings. She likes taking walks with her Lab mix, Tucker, and his buddies. She and her family live in North Carolina.
Susan has used her professional background as a psychotherapist and a management consultant to add authenticity to her characters.
SWEET SOUTHERN HEARTS, the final book in the Willow Hill series,
will be released in January of 2017. Readers can look forward to more
adventures, new beaus, sinister ministers, lovebirds over fifty, a road trip
for Mama and her pals, and maybe even an “I Do”...or two.
Author Links:
PRESENTED BY
No comments:
Post a Comment