Just Finished: The Lucky Harbor Series

I did it, I did it! I have finished another Christmas book in time to make it on the list for the Book Lovers Inc. Holiday Challenge. Phew! You're probably wondering how the above three novels qualify for a Christmas Challenge, aren't you? I actually read Simply Irresistible and The Sweetest Thing together in the combo book Christmas in Lucky Harbor. Those two books, plus Head Over Heels, were all written by Jill Shalvis. I thought they were sweet stories and I enjoyed reading them.

I got these books courtesy of NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing. "Christmas" in the title of Christmas in Lucky Harbor was what led me to them and I figured I may as well read the third novel while I was at it! I'm not going to put the synopsis in this post for these books because it would take up a lot of space so instead I will direct you to the Goodreads pages for each. You can find them here, here, and here. :) In a nutshell, these books each focus on a different sister - Maddie in Simply Irresistible, Tara in The Sweetest Thing, and Chloe in Head Over Heels. In true romance novel fashion, each sister falls in love with a different man and after a few obstacles are thrown in their path they all live happily ever after. The nice thing about these novels was that the relationship between the sisters was just as important as the romantic relationships. The three are actually half sisters, same mother but different fathers, and have never spent much time together. In fact, they hadn't seen each other in five years when they all came together for their mother's funeral. As it turns out, Phoebe, their wild and carefree mother, owned an inn in the quaint town of Lucky Harbor and the girls inherited it and all its problems. It's great to see how all the relationship between the women progress through the three novels.

It's very easy for romance novels (ok, any genre really) to get predictable and fall into a pattern. I always say that I don't care if I know who is going to end up with who at the end of the book as long as I'm entertained throughout the rest of the story. Fortunately, the Lucky Harbor novels gave me three sweet and fun stories. The sisters have to learn to fix themselves before they can let anyone else in and it was nice to see how they grew and evolved over the course of the series.

The only thing that I found disappointing was that I went into reading Christmas in Lucky Harbor expecting it to be totally Christmassy. Sadly, it was not. By now you'd think I would have learned my lesson but every year I assume that if "Christmas" or "holiday" is in the title of the book then it's going to be all Christmas all the time. Oh well. Even though I wished there had been a lot more Christmas in the book, I survived and still enjoyed reading it.

Overall, I enjoyed reading these books and I'm glad I read them back to back to back. I didn't really want to leave the world of Lucky Harbor and the inn and kept thinking about the books when I wasn't reading them. I think chick lit and romance lovers alike will enjoy Jill Shalvis' series. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on other books by her in the future.

Happy reading and happy New Year everyone! :)