A fun, cute book. It is fast paced and has a unique writing style. I found the names of the Moon characters to be a little silly, but in a good way. I have to wonder if the author knew about the Harvest Moon game franchise when they named a character that. Also the three dogs named Manny, Moe and Jack made me laugh out loud. Did the author see a Pep Boys commercial and get inspired or was the names a 100% coincidence? Funny, none the less.

 

I like how Honey is inspired to start a dog walking service after recusing Stormy. Honey seems to be a likeable character and I did enjoy how she got along with her family. I liked the hints that her Turtle backpack might be magical, or is it her imagination? I love the friendship between the three main girls and also how it ended with a possible 4th friend.

One thing that I wish would be different is more description. There seemed to be a lot of telling instead of showing, which could make some of the story a little lackluster. However, I will admit there were several times where I find myself smiling. There is something going for it, and I hope the author continues to write stories for children and adults alike.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book.

Disclaimer: I received this from Netgally in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the chance to read this!

This is a lead in to Blood Moon. Alessandra makes a bad decision that leads to the nightmare of her life. This is a dark story that may have triggers for some people. It is not too graphic in details but enough to allow the reader to understand what is happening.

I purchased this book elsewhere, and this is my unsolicited review.

Rising sous-chef Kelly Matlock's sudden collapse at work is a wake-up call. Disillusioned and burned out, she's retreated to her sister Jillian's house in Virgin River to rest and reevaluate. 

 

Puttering in Jill's garden and cooking with her heirloom vegetables is wonderful, but Virgin River is a far cry from San Francisco. Kelly's starting to feel a little too unmotivated…until she meets Lief Holbrook. The handsome widower looks more like a lumberjack than a sophisticated screenwriter—a combination Kelly finds irresistible. But less appealing is Lief's rebellious stepdaughter, Courtney. She's the reason they moved from LA, but Courtney's finding plenty of trouble even in Virgin River. 

 

Kelly's never fallen for a guy with such serious baggage, but some things are worth fighting for. Besides, a bratty teenager can't be any worse than a histrionic chef…right?

I 100 percent did not get the love story between the two leads (Kelly Matlock and Lief Holbrook). I seriously felt like since they were the last two single people in Virgin River it was the only reason why they did get together. At least Carr didn’t have them jump right into bed together though. Due to Lief’s backstory both of them were hanging back on being together. But besides a love scene or two, everything else is just referred to after the fact.

I don’t know. I think I was supposed to like Kelly. But I had a hard time when you find out that Kelly is working at a restaurant to be near the man that she is in love with (married chef Luca Brazzi). In fact, I think the only reason why Carr made sure that Kelly and Luca were never together was just so readers didn’t have a hard time rooting for her. But her kissing the guy, but refusing to be with him until he is legally divorced didn’t interest me much anyway. After being confronted by Luca’s wife and passing out, Kelly decides she needs to make a change. Working in the world of restaurants and dealing with abusive managers and chefs is not what she has in mind. So Kelly packs up all of her stuff and heads to Virgin River to go and stay with her sister Jillian. Stopping at Jack’s bar along the way she ends up meeting Lief who does some insta-love/lust nonsense and starts to feel like Kelly is his immediately.

Lief has moved to Virgin River to give him and his stepdaughter Courtney a chance to start again after Courtney’s mother’s death. I think I said in another review that Virgin River does attract the recently or almost recently widowed.

Besides Lief and Kelly’s POV we also get Courtney’s POV and man oh man I wish that had been cut. Courtney and her therapy sessions and all over horribleness to Kelly was just continuous. I really needed a break and could see why Kelly is 100 percent reluctant to start a relationship with Lief. I would have been out of there so fast.

We do have Kelly and Jillian interacting, but not enough for me. I really wish we had gotten more interaction between the two. They are sisters and definitely have been through a lot. But we just hear that Jillian is up early dealing with the garden, Colin is upstairs painting, etc. All Kelly does by the way is cook/bake through the entire book. Kelly and Preacher even have a cook off at one point that we don’t get a real sense of, it’s just put out there as a throwaway line.

I do think that due for once that so much is going on with the A plot stuff, there was very little B plot going on.

I really thought that this book just like the last one was just repetitive after a while. I was tired of reading about why Courtney had trust issues. I was tired of reading about Kelly and her crush on Luca and how dumb she felt. I was tired of reading about how Kelly’s food was making Colin fat.

The ending for once actually has an epilogue, I think this may be the first one that the series had. It picks up I think 6 or maybe 9 months later and I think that Carr did that to fast forward the series a bit. I think this was the first time I actually even saw a physical date in the books instead of me trying to figure out how much time has passed depending on some of the previous characters kids ages.

Under a Harvest Moon by Joleen James
Not only did the title get me but the summary=grape vintners. Love learning more grape things, so technical out of all the books I've read none mentioned the refractometer and technical things like brix.
Book starts out with Phiilip who is elderly and he has a man that works the vineyard for him. He dies in the field and in his will he's stated his daughter must live there for 90 days.
Others run the vineyard but she is the only one who can make the decisions as to what to do in certain cases. She brings her son with her and the housekeeper tends to him. Her ex husband has also tracked her down and as always he's only there for the money.
Find it odd Daneille must hold his keys and wallet and anything else that will allow him to escape while he has the child overnight. She wakes up early at 3am and Nico the production manager shows her what he's working on. Love the discussion of the grafting!
They also have play time and there are many hidden family secrets...
Just when they are getting closer to one another she hands him the letter her father left and there's one for her also.
Things become complicated and they split in many ways, never to be together again...
So many different angles, I'll be thinking of this book for many months to come.