Abandoned by Booklikes

The last few Blossom Street series have been hit or miss for me. I really liked her last one in the series, "Starting Now" though there was a big plot that I disliked intensely in that novel.

With her latest, "Blossom Street Brides" Ms. Macomber returns to Blossom Street to catch up with fan favorites such as Lydia from "The Shop on Blossom Street" and Bethanne who is still running her party planning business and a new character, Lauren who works at a jewelry store on Blossom Street.

I really did love "A Good Yarn" where we are first introduced to Bethanne and her family where we follow up with them in "A Turn in the Road" I can honestly say that I did not like that novel at all. I though that Bethanne who went from this strong independent woman in "A Good Yarn" turned into a wishy washy indecisive woman. I also ended up disliking her daughter Annie and her former mother in law.

Now to turn to this novel. First I have to say that Ms. Macomber is writing the characters as three dimensional characters again which makes me happy. She actually has plots going on with the three women and we have peeks at former characters from the prior Blossom Street novels. We have Bethanne still adjusting to her 15 month marriage to her husband Max. Lydia still trying to run her store 'A Good Yarn', be there for her family, and deal with her mother's ongoing problems with alzheimer's disease. Lauren is starting to realize that her two year relationship is going nowhere and that if she wants to be married with children she is going to have to take matters into her own hands.

My main reason for giving this four stars is that with that said I honestly didn't understand besides the one character what this had to do with Blossom Street Brides (notice the plural). It is pretty much stretching it to the story having two brides since one of the brides was a side character in another side character's story that readers don't lay eyes on until the epilogue.

I also thought that Ms. Macomber would have been better served by just focusing on Lauren and Bethanne's stories in this one. Those two characters plots were the strongest for me and I found myself skimming over Lydia's. Also the reveal of who is leaving the baskets all over town I figured out after the first two chapters.

I would recommend to fans of Debbie Macomber!