Review: The Wedding Shop by Rachel Hauck

The Wedding Shop by Rachel Hauck

Publisher: Zondervan

Pages: 374

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon 

Goodreads:  Two women separated by decades. Both set out to help others find their dreams when their own have crumbled.

It’s the early 1930s, but Cora Scott is walking in stride as a career woman after having inherited her great aunt’s wedding shop in Heart’s Bend, Tennessee, where brides come from as far away as Birmingham to experience her famed bridal treatment. Meanwhile, Cora is counting down the days until her own true love returns from the river to make her his bride. But days turn into months and months to years. All the while, Birch Good continues to woo Cora and try to show her that while he is solid and dependable, he can sweep her off her feet.

More than eighty years later, former Air Force Captain Haley Morgan has returned home to Heart’s Bend after finishing her commitment to military service. After the devastating death of her best friend, Tammy, and discovering the truth about the man she loved, Haley is searching for her place in life.

When Haley decides to reopen the romantic but abandoned wedding shop where she and Tammy played and dreamed as children, she begins a journey of courage, mystery, and love.

As Cora’s and Haley’s stories intertwine through time in the shadow of the beloved wedding shop, they both discover the power of their own dreams and the magic of everyday love.

Kritters Thoughts:  Two women in two different times and one wedding shop.  The wedding shop was a place for women to get the all important dress they would wear on their wedding day.  A place for women to come together and celebrate each other at a very specific time in their lives - a special building that should and could stand the test of time.    

I liked that it took awhile before the reader finds out the connection between the two stories, other than the obvious one, the wedding shop.  I appreciated that in each storyline there were very different things going on in the wedding shop - the current storyline they are renovating and trying to save it while in the storyline from the past the shop is thriving and serving another generation of women with wedding dresses and other clothing needs.  

I didn't see the connection in book two for this to be deemed a series, but there were connections in this one.  A real estate agent from book two was in this one and Charlotte Rose from the first book makes a large appearance in this one.  I still am not sure if I would really count this as a series, they just didn't have as many connections and obvious shared things from book to book that I would like to see when it comes to a series.  Of course, this didn't alter my reading experience of the books, just something I noticed.

I am intrigued to read and review a novella in the series and see if/how it fits into the situation.

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