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 4th 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.
