A Seaside Christmas

September 2, 2013
Woods’s 10th Chesapeake Shores contemporary (after The Summer Garden) has few surprises. Renowned songwriter Jenny Collins is having difficulties coming to terms with her mom’s happy marriage to an O’Brien. Nonetheless, a bad tabloid-splashed breakup with her cheating pop star boyfriend, Caleb Green, has Jenny retreating to her beachside hometown for Christmas. Caleb knows that performing Jenny’s latest tune could help him make a comeback, but he’ll have follow Jenny to Chesapeake Shores to get her permission. As Caleb is drawn into the sphere of the O’Brien family through participation in a local Christmas show, he predictably helps Jenny begin to feel at home there again. This Christmas tale is set against a huge warm Irish-American family cast with an ending that turns out “exactly the way it was supposed to.”

October 1, 2013
Successful songwriter Jenny Collins returns to Chesapeake Shores to escape Nashville and her messy breakup with country music star Caleb Green, but when Caleb follows her, entwining himself in her holiday season and her huge, extended stepfamily, she finds it hard to resist his charm despite their difficult past. Jenny has avoided Chesapeake Shores for years. As an only child raised mostly by her single mom, with help from her uncle Jake, Jenny found it hard when both her mom and her uncle married into the sprawling O'Brien clan when she was a teenager. Desperate to be part of the close-knit family, yet always feeling like an outsider, Jenny has had little to do with the community or the family since she left for college, especially since she'd found a successful new life in Nashville, partnering with country star Caleb Green personally and professionally. But after Caleb's career and their relationship imploded just over a year ago, Jenny can't bear another lonely holiday in Nashville, and she decides it's time to go home. Navigating the family relationships she's always struggled with becomes even more complicated when Caleb shows up unexpectedly, determined to convince her that he's cleaned up his act and that they belong together. Woods returns to her popular Chesapeake Shores setting with another O'Brien Christmas story, which will give fans a warm, happy glow. Jenny starts out hard to like, and it's a shame we can't see more of a glimpse of her as the woman Caleb fell in love with before she put up her barriers. While much of the book is Caleb being the perfect guy and slowly winning a prickly Jenny back, the setup to the Black Moment comes across as a rushed, awkward segue from progress made to back-to-square-one absolute distrust on Jenny's part, while the resolution scene gets the job done but is similarly rushed. Overall, engaging and satisfying despite some missteps. A sweet, affecting holiday-themed read that will appeal to romance and Chesapeake Shores fans rooting for Jenny to find her own hero and happily-ever-after.

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October 15, 2013

After fleeing to Nashville years earlier, songwriter Jenny Collins has been lured back to Chesapeake Shores to write songs for her friend Bree's holiday play. But Bree has an ulterior motive: she wants Jenny to make peace with her estranged family and realize she's part of the whole O'Brien clan. Yet after years of feeling like an outsider, it's not easy for Jenny to change--though she's determined to try. The unexpected arrival of her ex-boyfriend--and his reasons for coming--stir things up, and suddenly Jenny has far more to deal with than she'd planned. VERDICT Touching, heart-rending, and beautifully family-centered, this fresh holiday romance brings the O'Brien clan together in a rewarding story of forgiveness, trust, and unconditional love; another addition to Woods's popular series. Woods (Sea Glass Island) divides her time between Colonial Beach, VA, and Key Biscayne, FL.

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