Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Accidental Bride, by Christina Skye

DATE READ: 9/12/2012;     RATING: B, WARM

PUBLISH DATE: 9/25/2012

ARC PROVIDED BY NETGALLEY FOR REVIEW

High profile chef Jilly O’Hara is on the fast track to success, when a heart attack at the age of 27 changes her life. Her friends are concerned for her, and send her to a mountain knitting retreat. They tell Jilly it is actually a cooking retreat to convince her to go, so Jilly is a bit surprised and thrown off her game when she arrives in Montana, and realizes her pals have set her up. She is at the small town airport in Lost Creek, waiting for transportation to the lodge when she meets Walker Hale.and his service dog Winslow, who served together in the military. Walker is a broken man, but for Winslow it is love at first sight when he meets Jilly.  Dogs know best, don’t they???

Jilly despises knitting, but is drawn in to the retreat, and decides she can make something for Winslow. Before long, the knitting relaxes Jilly, and she starts to understand the tranquility of the craft. Needing to make some major life changes, Jilly starts to understand some of the things her doctors are talking about when they tell her that she has to change her fast paced life.

There are a few tense moments when Jilly has some issues with her health, and she isn’t really up front with Walker about her heart problems. Jilly and Walker do fall hard for one another, so the pretense of a wedding between them is not a difficult to imagine.

The town of Lost Creek is a quirky little town, and everyone there loves their hero Walker, and his dog. Mamie, the aging owner of the resort Jilly is visiting, has a dream of a wedding for Walker, and before you know it, the entire town is busy planning the pretend wedding between Walker and Jilly, all to please Mamie. Of course, things aren’t always as they seem, and as sparks fly between Walker and Jillie, the vacation comes to an end.

The ending is a bit rushed, and I was not happy that we did not get a complete resolution to Jilly’s health problems. It started out as a major plot line, and was pushed aside by the wedding, and a very brief conversation with Walker about It towards the end. Walker was a to die for hero, along with his service dog, Winslow. Not much mention of Summer Island in this story either, so I do hope we get back to that a bit more in Olivia’s story, due up next.

All in all, a very good book. Christina Skye knows a thing or two about service dogs, as we know from some of her previous books, and hot heros!

**Note**   Since I have an ARC, the only blurb I have to go by is from Amazon, which is sort of correct, and the blurb from Goodreads, which is totally off base and not even close to what the actual book was about. 

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