Thursday, December 16, 2021

Advent Reads Day 16: The Merriest Magnolia by Michelle Major

 Welcome to Advent Reads!

This is an event I have had on my blog for several years running now.  Each evening I feature a different holiday themed book. Think of it as your Book Advent Calendar! I post a variety of holiday books including romance, children's, middle-grade, mystery, paranormal, and I try to find some that are other holiday celebrations than Christmas too. I hope you will stop by each evening to see what new book I have for you!


Synopsis: "Home for the holidays has always meant cozy small-town traditions…but this year all that may change…

Carrie Reed has always been known as her hometown Good Girl, yet she still loves Magnolia, North Carolina—after all, this is where her newly discovered sisters, Avery and Meredith, live. But Christmas is on its way and with it, her first love. Dylan Scott is back in town and planning on changing everything she’s ever loved about Magnolia with his real estate development project…but not without a fight.

Returning to Magnolia was never in Dylan’s plans—it holds too many reminders that he would never be good enough, and memories of the girl he left behind. But when a tragedy leaves him guardian of a grieving teenager, Dylan returns, ready to remake the town into something only money can buy, small-town traditions be damned. But with Carrie determined to stop him, he finds himself wondering if redeeming his teenage reputation is worth losing out on his second chance at love."

My Review: This was definitely a cover and title buy for me, turns out maybe I should have done a bit of research as this is the second book in the series. You don't necessarily need to read the first book to enjoy the holiday story but it certainly would help with keeping the large cast of characters straight and catch up on the rather heavy backstory. I kind of missed the close family feel with this book, there is some family love involved but there is a lot of family strife as well. I did enjoy following Dylan's story more in this book, he seemed to have a lot more character growth and development throughout and that is where the warm fuzzy holiday feelings finally came it, but it took a while to get there. I think if I had been more familiar with this series, I may have enjoyed the book more.

My Rating: Like I said above, there is a lot going on with this book, a lot of character and setting history that is a bit difficult to jump into; if you can just ignore it you can still get that second chance romance holiday story.  I give it a rating of Two Paws and a Stump Wag but I really think if I had already read the previous book it would have been better.





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