Review: Blue Hollow Falls series – Donna Kauffman

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I’d read a novella set in this series as part of The Season to Celebrate anthology, and I enjoyed it so much that I had to pick up the rest of the series.  I don’t read a ton of small-town romances, but I found this series quite charming.

This first book stars Sunny, who finds out, in one fell swoop, that the father she never met is dead, and that he’s left her with a step-mother, half-sister, and part ownership of an abandoned silk mill in a small town in the middle of, well, nowhere.  Unaware of the terms of the will, her step-mother’s adopted son, Sawyer, has already begun renovating the mill to turn it into a showpiece for the artisans who live in Blue Hollow Falls.

I loved Sunny and Sawyer.  After taking care of her ill mother for most of her life, Sunny is finally free and able to do, well, whatever she wants, which, for the moment, is continuing her work at the Botanical Gardens with endangered plants.  Though they feel a deep connection to each other, Sawyer is inextricably linked to Blue Hollow Falls and Sunny cannot see a way of moving three hours away from her job.  Luckily, there’s a precocious plot moppet and a dilapidated greenhouse.  I thought this got tied up a bit too nicely (quickly getting grant money to renovate the greenhouse? Very convenient timing!) but I enjoyed the setting and the quirky cast of characters.

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“Chances come along, and you have two choices. You can take the risk and accept that it is one.”
“Or?”
“You can think about all those bad possible outcomes and run scared.”

Cute holiday novella, probably more of a 3.5 for me.  I love Ms. Kauffman’s characters, but Stevie felt a bit too similar to Sunny to me.  While the insta-love was strong with this one, I enjoyed reading about running the inn during a snowstorm, with all the comical mishaps and cute holiday touches (though I haven’t decided if a morning after snowman is a weird or inspired touch).

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“Falling in love is one of the best things we do,” he told her plainly, blue eyes alight as he did. “You can do a lot in life, but none so great as that.” Now he nudged her and gave her another wink. “I’m here to tell you, it’s even better if they fall right back.”

This was fun and a bit more angsty than I was expecting for Sawyer’s flirty best friend.  Seth’s little sister sets up a house swap with a famous Irish folk singer – only the house she agrees to swap is Seth’s vineyard in Blue Hollow Falls.  Recovering from a possibly career ending injury, Pippa is relieved to hide out in the small town and try to recover her musical spark.  Of course, that might just be helped along by a certain hot winemaker.  I found Mabry a bit over-the-top – I prefer to see my characters discover their truths themselves, rather than having them bestowed upon them by a cranky-but-lovable old coot, but Pippa, and the whole book honestly, is just so sweet that I just rolled my eyes and kept reading.  I did find the conflict to be a rehash of the previous book – different worlds! career and family a long plane ride away! – but I found the resolution more realistic than the last book, though I do wonder where the heck these people are getting loans for such large projects.  But, it’s cute, Seth and Pippa are an adorable couple, and we get more plot moppet manipulation.

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I reviewed the second Christmas novella, “Christmas in Blue Hollow Falls,” as part of The Season to Celebrate anthology, and I’ll have a review for the third book in the series up on the blog this week!  While it’s much more angsty and heart wrenching than the previous books, I’m happy to say that it still has that small town something that keeps me reading these books!

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