Love in Bloom is a great read. It’s a big city girl inherits a farm with grown up Hallmark Christmas movie without the Christmas vibes. And spice. Have some ice water on hand.
Emma Walters has Molotov cocktails in her soul and watching her learn to direct them where they belonged, instead of at her own life was a delight. Emma is a good girl, a highly competent perfectionist who smooths the path and cleans up other people’s mess. Except she keeps blowing up her own life. Right off the bat, you can see that Emma is doing too many things, in too short a time, and not taking care of herself. Her car is the outward manifestation of how she is doing – driving on a donut, needs an oil change, and probably needs new brakes.
I loved that Lucy Eden takes the big city girl inherits a farm trope and gives it some great twists. Sure, Emma finds love, community, and meaning in a small town while learning how to live an agricultural life (you will meet King Richard the rooster and Frisbee the goat), but the farm manager isn’t a small town guy. He’s Dr. Danesh Pednekar, a horticultural scientist from the UK. The contrast between the big city, ambitious corporate boyfriend and the small town new love interest avoids the anti-intellectualism that can happen in these stories. The problem with Teddy isn’t that he’s Big City, it’s that he’s a narcissist who expects Emma to always make his life better without ever seeing her. New love interest Dan isn’t grumpy to break Emma down and put her in touch with her rural roots, he’s grieving the loss of his friends and uncertain about his future. But he is taking care of Emma and enabling her to take care of herself from the start.
I’m not going to spoil what’s happening on the farm, but this isn’t an embrace of back to the land values. I also loved that towards the end of the book, the town does come together and put on a show to save the day.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Forever Grand Publishing and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.