Review: A Wish For Winter by Viola Shipman

Well here in the Midwest like most of the country we're bracing for a blustering winter storm the likes of which we haven't seen in decades. Not much snow but what snow that falls will be blowing around causing havoc for drivers with 50 mph wind gusts and temps dropping from the 30s to below zero in mere hours.
So I suggest you draw closed the drapes and the blinds to keep out the cold, curl up in your favorite chair and open one last holiday story. And Viola Shipman's A Wish For Winter is the perfect choice.
See what I thought about it below.
Enjoy!

ISBN-13: 978-1525804892
Publisher: Graydon House
Release Date: 11-15-2022
Length: 400pp
Source: Publisher for review
Buy It HERE

ADD TO: GOODREADS

Overview:
With echoes of classic Hollywood love stories like Serendipity and An Affair to Remember, Viola Shipman’s latest winter charmer following the USA TODAY bestseller The Secret of Snow is sure to tug on heartstrings and delight readers who love books about books, missed connections and the magic of Christmas.


Despite losing her parents in a tragic accident just before her fourteenth Christmas, Susan Norcross has had it better than most, with loving grandparents to raise her and a gang of quirky, devoted friends to support her. Now a successful bookstore owner in a tight-knit Michigan lakeside community, Susan is facing down forty—the same age as her mother when she died—and she can’t help but see everything she hasn’t achieved, including finding a love match of her own. To add to the pressure, everyone in her small town believes it’s Susan’s destiny to meet and marry a man dressed as Santa, just like her mother and grandmother before her. So it seems cosmically unfair that the man she makes an instant connection with at an annual Santa Run is lost in the crowd before she can get his name.

What follows is Susan and her friends’ hilarious and heartwarming search for the mystery Santa—covering twelve months of social media snafus, authors behaving badly and dating fails—as well as a poignant look at family, friendship and what defines a well-lived and well-loved life.


A Country Living Magazine Best Christmas Book to Read This Holiday Season!

My Review:

A Wish for Winter
Viola Shipman

 

A Wish for Winter, Viola’s latest holiday tale is tragic yet uplifting, beautifully penned and absolutely unputdownable from beginning to end. A heartwarming story that’s quaintly old fashioned reminiscent of times gone by, yet timely including a diverse cast of players that will have the audience believing in the magic of Christmas and Santa. The characters are an eclectic mix of quirky, charming and down to earth and they will have readers rolling on the floor laughing at their antics and pulling at heartstrings. Susan is a delight, she’s an exceptional star character, practical yet there’s part of her that still wants to believe in magic even when it seems the universe is in cahoots to keep it at bay. And how she handles the escapades put on by her friends and family and especially her BFF is eyerolling and chuckle-worthy yet she tolerates it because she loves them. Then there are Susan’s grandparents, aka Mr. & Mrs. Claus who are the epitome of love and will have every reader wishing they were their grandparents. Readers will fall in love with this factual Michigan town especially dressed in its winter finery and all its fictional residents and the way they care for each other. If you love novels by Susan Wiggs, Kristin Hannah and Patti Callahan you will love this.

Susan Norcross was raised to believe in the magic of Christmas, after all both her parents and grandparents played Mr. & Mrs. Claus for their quaint Michigan town as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey was put away. And her mom and grandmother both met their future husbands dressed as Santa, so Susan believed that she would too. She believed it so much that in the 4^th grade she wrote a poem called The Single Kringle and in it she detailed just how she would meet her Kringle. Then her parents died tragically, and the magic was gone. She did, thanks to her loving grandparents who took over raising her, get some of the magic back but life was never the way it used to be.

Now fast forward twenty-six years….

Susan is turning forty, the age her mom was when she died and although she is the owner of a successful bookshop and is surrounded by dear friends and her beloved grandparents, she can’t help but focus on the one thing she thought she’d have by now, her very own Kris Kringle.

 But when at the annual Chicago Santa run she meets who she thinks may be her very own Santa she thinks the tides have turned, they have an instant connection and agree to meet up after the race. But when he disappears without a trace Susan once again is alone wondering why she even tries.

Little does she know that her bestie, a social media influencer has come up with a plan to reunite Susan with the Santa that got away. And what happens next is a gone viral comedy of errors, hot Santas, romance and Susan more often then not questioning her choice in BFFs.

 

About the author:

Wade Rouse is a popular award-winning memoirist and internationally bestselling author of twelve books, which have been translated into twenty languages and selected as Today show Must-Reads, Indie Next Picks and Michigan Notable Books. Rouse writes fiction under his grandma’s name, Viola Shipman, to honor the woman whose heirlooms inspire his writing. He lives in Michigan and California, and hosts Wine & Words with Wade, A Literary Happy Hour, every Thursday.