Review: The Wedding Dress Christmas by Rachel Hauck

The Wedding Dress Christmas by Rachel Hauck

Publisher: Hauck House

Pages: 150

Format: eARC 

Buy the Book: Amazon 

Goodreads:  December comes to quaint Hearts Bend, Tennessee, with a blanket of white and the glitter of Christmas lights.

For JoJo Castle there is no place like home. Her onetime love of adventure ended when her life in the big city came crashing down. Now that she’s home, she never wants to leave again.

Country music sensation Buck Mathews has charmed the world with his smile and his music. However, news of his mother’s illness brought him home to Hearts Bend for the holiday season.

Working with her cousin Haley in The Wedding Shop, JoJo has no aspirations of love. But when her high school crush returns to town, her buried feelings surface.

Busy with his career, Buck hasn’t had time for family and friends, much less love. Seeing JoJo in The Wedding Shop reminds him there are things more important than his career.

But JoJo and Buck have opposing life goals, and there’s no middle ground. Can love, especially the kind that touches hearts at Christmas, overcome her fears and his quest for greatness?

With the help of a very special wedding dress, there just might a Christmas miracle.

Kritters Thoughts:  A novella in a series that takes place in the small town in Tennessee in a wedding shop that is quaint and cute.  This novella focuses on JoJo Castle who is related to the owner of the bridal shop and has returned to this small town after an incident scared her in the big city.  Buck Mathews has returned home for the holidays to be with his family and take a break from his country music life and he remembers JoJo and wonders if their worlds can fit together now.

With romance books, I typically don't enjoy when they are shortened and crammed into a small space like a novella.  It can feel like instalove and whiplash fast, so I like when the author adds in a troupe that this couple has known each other and this is a remeeting of sorts because it gives history without extra pages.  

I loved the hurdles that JoJo and Buck had to figure out to even see if they could have a future.  Sometimes romance books don't feel close to reality, but for me this one did as this couple had to figure out how their life's ambitions would align before they could even think about starting a relationship.

I like this book, but I would completely suggest reading the books in this series before this one so there is a little context to this story.

Rating:  definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Ebook 2020 Challenge: 59 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.