Romance

On the anniversary of his beloved wife's death, Dr. Michael Everett receives a letter Hannah had written him. In it she reminds him of her love and makes one final request. An impossible request: I want you to marry again. She tells him he shouldn't spend the years he has left grieving her. And to that end she's chosen three women she asks him to consider.

First on Hannah's list is Winter Adams, a trained chef who owns a cafe on Seattle's Blossom Street. The second is Leanne Lancaster, Hannah's oncology nurse. Michael knows them both. But the third name is one he's not familiar with - Macy Roth. Each of these three women has her own heartache, her own private grief. During the months that follow, he spends time with Winter, Leanne and Macy, learning more about each of them...and about himself

A year after the death of his wife, Hannah, Michael is handed a letter by his brother in law. Hannah has written a list, including 3 names of women she'd like him to consider as someone to move forward with after her death.

Still grieving, at first he finds it difficult to face that his dead wife has asked him to move on - and has even suggested several names in the process, but slowly starts to meet these women, all of whom are damaged in their own way too.

This is a sweet romance book, sensitively approaching the subject of what happens to the people who are left behind after death. ( )

I'm not the proper demographic and only made it to page 50.

I've been avoiding this author, not consciously, just with an fairly good idea that what she writes is not really my cuppa. (Ahh...patio furniture novels). But I felt like it was time I tried one, so I'd know whether or not to recommend them. I tend to be not as interested in what I call 'sweet' or 'gentle' romances. This was definitely of that sort.

I will say that I did not like the choice to mix the 1st person POV of the hero with 3rd person POV for the three women involved. Pick one or the other. Mixing them is just laziness on the part of the author, in my opinion. Other than that the writing was competent. The plot and character motivations were clear. This was a book that depended mostly on the characters thoughts, followed next in importance by the conversations the characters had. Almost no effort was made to set any sort of scene. Descriptions of place or characters were practically nonexistant. While the fact that Hannah had died and Michael missed her was sad, the writing was not such that for me I felt any real need to cry or whatever. The writing style kept me a bit removed from the emotions of the story.

The heroine was an interesting character. You knew from the beginning which woman he would choose. I liked her ditsy artist style although she was just a bit too insecure. I would have liked her to be more self assured in her differentness. You didn't really see/experience the couple falling in love they just were which was fine in this light of a romance. The secondary characters were well drawn. I was almost as interested in seeing the two women he didn't choose get the opportunity to mend things with the men they really loved as I was to see Michel get his HEA. I also really liked the old man, Harvey.

If you're looking for excitement, drama, angst etc., not going to find it here. If you want a sweet story with people who seem true to life, a story that you could see actually happening in real life, this is perfect for you. This was nice, I enjoyed it, for myself though, I just want a wilder ride in my fiction. I can say though that I can happily and confidently recommend DM's books to customers who tell me they want something sweet. ( )

I've read Debbie Macomber books before. I didn't realize this was part of her Blossom Street series until I was ready to review it. The only real mention of Blossom Street in this book is that Winter's cafe is located on that street.

The book centers around widowed pediatrician Michael who enjoyed a seemingly fairytale romance with his late wife Hannah. Hannah writes Michael a letter that she asks her brother to deliver to him on the 1 year anniversary of her death. In this letter, Hannah asks Michael to date and marry again and lists 3 candidates she'd like him to consider.

I kind of figured out which one of the 3 he'd end up with in the end almost right from when he read the list. I didn't suspect that the other two on the list would get helpful information out of the romantic attempts though. I did like the idea of writing down what bothers you about the other person and how you react to what those things are. Sometimes a change in how one party responds can make all the difference. (I'm not saying that this is always true--there are some red flags that should be heeded such as physical abuse, mental or psychological abuse, etc. that no amount of changes of reaction are going to fix and those do need to be fled.)

My biggest issue with Macomber is that she usually has characters that go a bit too far in the passion department (IMHO) before she reins them in. I had hoped she would avoid that in this book but was disappointed in the last third of the book where she had a couple scenes between Macy and Michael that were a bit questionable (IMHO). Though at least her publishers are no longer trying to market her as Christian Romance or Clean Romance but have rather just placed her in the Romance category.

This was a book I picked up at a library book sale where it was $2.00 for a grocery bag full of books. I'm not sure I would have picked it up otherwise. ( )