Twenty Wishes

Anne Marie Roche wants to find happiness again. At thirty-eight, her life is not what she had expected. She is childless, a recent widow, alone. She owns a successful bookstore on Seattle's Blossom Street, but despite her accomplishments, there is a feeling of emptiness.
On Valentine's Day, Anne Marie and several other widows get together to celebrate what? Hope, possibility, the future. They each begin a list of twenty wishes, things they always wanted to do but never did.
Anne Marie's list starts with: Find one good thing about life. It includes learning to knit, doing good for someone else, falling in love again. She begins to act on her wishes, and when she volunteers at a local school, an eight-year-old girl named Ellen enters her show more life. It is a relationship that becomes far more involving than Anne Marie intended. It also becomes far more important than she ever imagined.
As Ellen helps Anne Marie complete her list of twenty wishes, they both learn that wishes can come true but not necessarily in the way you expect. show less

An easy to read book. The dialogue felt stilted but the story was generally enjoyable and uplifting. It's weird to read a book and have every single character be straight and totally heteronormative. So there was that too.

Fifth of the Blossom Street series and it fills in a couple of gaps.

There is a small group of women around Blossom Street, of various ages, who have become widows. One Valentines' Day evening, they decide to each write a list of Twenty wishes.

Over the next 18 months things happen to help them reach the spirit of their wishes, if not necessarily all the items on their list.

Standard Macomber fare, that can border on the sweet and twee, but thankfully pulls away before it gets too sappy.

Easy afternoon read on a cold and windy April weekend!

After the death of her husband and childless, 38 year old Anne Marie Roche feels lonely and yearns to be happy again. On Valentine's Day she decides to get together with other widows (Elise Beaumont, Lillie Higgins, and Barbie Foster) so none of them will be alone that day. They each decide to make a list of twenty wishes - things they always wanted to do but never did. All of them take their wishes seriously and all will discover that wishes can come true, but not always in the way you expect.

Debbie Macomber is one of the best writers of sweet romance novels and "Twenty Wishes" is one of her best novels. She has created four enjoyable characters - Anne Marie, Elsie, Lillie, and Barbie - who are looking for love again and find it in show more the most unlikely of places. To mix things up a bit, Macomber throws in a cute little eight year old girl to show that love can happen in many different ways. Each character's story is sweet (although Elise does get shortchanged a bit) and will make you smile. My favorites were Lillie and her daughter Barbie's very unlikely romances. What Debbie Macomber does best is create very likable characters that you will care about. Her stories are very sweet with some kissing - sex is talked about (barely) but never detailed. The twenty wishes is a nice gimmick that helps move the book right along. Her writing isn't particularly deep - the characters barely have any flaws - even eight year old Ellen, who has had so many bad things happen in her life that you think she would act out at least once but never does - and Macomber guarantees that everyone will have a happy ending. What makes Macomber's books so enjoyable is that she is a gifted storyteller who knows how to create fairy tales for adults that are guaranteed to keep a smile on your face.

"Twenty Wishes" is part of Debbie Macomber's Blossom Street series. The other books in the series are:

The Shop on Blossom Street (Blossom Street, No. 1)
A Good Yarn (Blossom Street, No. 2)
Susannah's Garden
Back on Blossom Street (Blossom Street, No. 3)

Enjoy! show less

Opening Sentence: '...It was six o'clock on Valentine's Day, an hour that should have marked the beginning of a celebration - the way it had when she and Robert were married. When Robert was alive...'

Didn't enjoy this as much as the first in the series THE SHOP ON BLOSSOM STREET but still a nice cozy read that I really need right now to sooth the soul. The book concentrates on four widows who meet at Anne Marie Roche's bookstore.

Anne Marie is the main focus of this book - she was separated from her husband after he refused to have a baby with her, they are on the point of reconciliation when he suddenly died. Lillie Higgins lost her husband in a plane crash, the same plane crash took the husband of her daughter, Barbie Foster. The last show more of the group, Elise Beaumont, became a widow after cancer claimed her husband. Together, the four decide to make wish lists of twenty wishes. With Elise's prodding, Anne Marie decides to fulfill one of her wishes—do good for someone else—and becomes a lunch buddy to an at-risk third grader. Anne Marie also has to deal with the reappearance of her adult stepdaughter, Melissa, who always hated her.

Although each of the women has something that they are seeking, their wishes don't necessarily turn out the way they imagine - some do. Yes the endings to each woman's story is pretty well predictable, I found getting there to be fun, enjoyable and soothing for me. They are feel good stories, and that is what a wanted and got. I wish I had a group of friends like this. show less

I really enjoyed this story! The characters were very enduring. I connected with all of them right away. The ending was very satisfying as always with Debbie Macomber novels. My only wish is that she would make her stories a little more modern. It seems odd to read about women in the 21st century who never check email or use their cellphones. In one part of the story a character wants a guy to call her and she actually takes out a pen and paper to write her phone number down. That seems out-dated to me. And I hated hearing the characters say "you can find anything on the Internet!" or "I found out a lot about so and so on the Internet!" But overall, I still love her stories and this one was a delightful. I read it in one day! I am still show more looking forward to the next book in this series. show less

Debbie Macomber has done it again. She captured my heart and got me crying before the end of the book. I always seem to be able to pick up on where she is going but can't put the book down until I get there at the end.

Four widows get together and decide to make lists of twenty wishes of goals, wants, needs or whimsical things. The journey to find their desires isn't easy but then their lives haven't been easy to this point either and life always has a way of coming around to what is really needed in the end.