Blog Tour Stop : Kate Rock Book Tours courtesy of Wild Quail Publishing
Thanks so much to the author, Kate Rock Book Tours, and Wild Quail Publishing for the complimentary finished copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts, and participation in this blog tour. { partner }
BOOK DESCRIPTION FROM GOODREADS :
Camilla “Cami” Chandler comes home from France to take over the Chandler Hill Inn and Winery for her recently-deceased grandmother, Lettie, as she’d always promised. Determined to succeed in this new venture, she finds herself in trouble from the beginning when she discovers most of her grandmother’s estate intended for maintaining the inn’s business expenses was lost in a Ponzi scheme. She forges ahead to provide the best wines in Willamette Valley.
After being ditched by her French boyfriend, she decides that being friends with Drew Farley is the safest way to proceed. He loves grape growing and winemaking as much as she does and isn’t looking for anything beyond friendship.
When a bride planning a wedding at the inn tells Cami that she looks exactly like her best friend, life becomes even more complicated. Never having known even the name of her father, Cami searches for a connection and comes to realize how complicated love and family can be.
MY THOUGHTS/REVIEW ( 5 STARS) :
I’ll start by saying, this is book 2 of 3 in the Chandler Hill Inn series from this author, and I was not able to read the first book before diving in to this book. While I do think that I probably would have gotten more out of the story if I had read the first book, at no point did I feel like I was completely missing the necessary background. The beginning of this novel gives all information on the characters, setting, and background that was needed for this particular story, so I definitely wasn’t feeling like I couldn’t enjoy this book without having read the first. But again, I do think I may have gotten more out of it with the rest of the story, so take this whole first paragraph with a grain of salt. Basically, maybe read the first book first, but it also wasn’t necessary for me.
All of that being said, I loved this book. I read this entire book in one day, and I am not a fast reader. I was engrossed in the characters and the setting, and I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Also the story takes place at an Inn and Winery in Oregon, which I love. Having grown up in Washington, I love reading books or consuming other media that takes place in or near my Pacific Northwest. What can I say? The area has my heart. I wanted to hop on a plane back towards home and stay a weekend at the Chandler Hill Inn.
I also (and this will shock nobody who has read any of my other reviews) really loved the characters and their portion of the story. The “villains” of the book (read: people in the story who are working against our protagonist, not exactly super villains) were overall really believable as actual people, which I think always makes the trials in a story more interesting, rather than some totally unrealistic circumstances. And while I’ve never been put in the situations that they put Cami through in the book, so I haven’t known anyone to go to those particular extremes, I definitely feel like everyone knows these exact types of people having come and gone in their lives.
But overall, the characters were just so lovely (I think I fell in love with her grandpa, Rafe, and I will not apologize for it.) Cami, the female lead, is so strong and so sweetly written. I love a story of a young woman really coming into her own, and being a boss. And Cami does both over the course of this book. I wanted to be her friend, or even just work with her at the Inn. (Why yes, living and working at a beautiful and romantic Inn and Winery just may be a dream of mine, why do you ask? All of the wine.) But I mean it, give me all of the strong female characters in all of the media. I was very invested in her life and her story, and I definitely finished the book wanting to know where she was going to go from there.
I would recommend this book to any of my friends that want a character-driven story and a really fun, quick read. I am so excited that I was given the chance to read this book for the author’s blog tour, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book, Home At Last, which is publishing soon! I may even get myself a copy of the first book to see what I had missed out on!
Tackling TBR 