The Best Laid Wedding Plans
by Lynnette Austin
Genre: Contemporary Romance
With love in their hearts and
crafting the perfect wedding on their minds, the possibilities are endless for
the ladies of Lynette Austin's new Magnolia Brides series.
SOME DREAMS ARE WORTH WHATEVER IT TAKES
Jenni Beth Beaumont left her broken heart behind when she took her dream job
in Savannah. But after her brother's death, Jenni Beth returns home to help
mend her parents' hearts as well as restore their beautiful but crumbling
antebellum mansion. New dreams take shape as Jenni Beth sets to work replacing
floors and fixing pipes to convert the family homestead into the perfect
wedding destination. However, some folks in their small Southern town are
determined to see her fail.
Cole Bryson was once the love of Jenni Beth's life, but the charming
architectural salvager has plans of his own for the Beaumont family home. As
the two butt heads,
old turmoil is brought to the surface and Cole and Jenni Beth will have to work
through some painful memories and tough realities before they can set their
pasts aside and have a second chance at their own happily ever after.
Cole and Jenni Beth start off a bit rocky due to their past, but their relationship developed as they worked together on renovating her house and starting her business. I enjoyed this sweet southern romance, good start to a new series. I'm really looking forward to the next book, I'm really hoping it features their friend Beck!
I received an ARC via NetGalley for the purpose of an honest review. I was not compensated for this review, all conclusions are my own.
25 Fun Facts
- A purple rose signifies love at first sight. I’ll bet that’s what Prince Charming gave to Cinderella.
- Architectural salvagers recycle the past. I dare you to visit a shop and leave without buying anything. I found the best yellow chicken doorknocker for my office at Pinch of the Past in Savannah, Georgia.
- Poke salad really is a dish eaten by some Southerners, but I wouldn’t suggest it. Poke can’t be eaten raw and, even after three boilings, still contains toxins.
- Don’t give your sweetheart a peach-colored rose. It’s used to show gratitude or appreciation rather than love.
- Jenni Beth’s favorite color is red, the color of energy, passion, and action. That describes her in a nutshell.
- I love to stand on the beach while the waves crash ashore. If it’s windy and rainy? All the better.
- I love a bargain, and so do both Jenni Beth and Cole.
- One of my students came to school one morning and told me he’d seen a Siamese toad on his way to class. Think about it! How do you explain that to a child?
- I rode a camel in Morocco.
- I drove a 65 ’Vette just like Jenni Beth’s my second year of college, and I loved it every bit as much as she loves hers!
- The Beaumont’s have an old yellow lab named Zeke. That was my husband’s nickname growing up because there were three Daves on the block.
- I picked up my rental car in downtown Dublin, Ireland at noon. After getting out of the passenger side, I moved to the wrong side of the car where the steering wheel actually was and turned the wrong way at the first red light. It went downhill from there.
- Frozen chocolate custard makes me smile.
- Forest Gump’s “ Life is like a box of chocolates” quote was filmed in Savannah. The bench he sat on is in the Savannah History Museum.
- The very first Girl Scouts meeting was held in Savannah.
- The absolutely perfect cherub chandelier Cole gave Jenni Beth for her office was salvaged from a house about to be leveled by a wrecking ball.
- Salvaged pieces of the past in new or old homes give them a sense of history.
- A student brought me a bouquet of rather wilted flowers one day. It turned out he’d taken a shortcut through the cemetery that morning. The thought was there, right?
- I am the proud owner of a guitar pick given to me by Sugarland’s Kristian Bush during their Incredible Machine tour.
- On a field trip with fifty students in Wyoming, our bus driver drove into a gulley. We were too far out for any communications. While the other teacher stayed with the bus, I walked three miles over the sagebrush covered prairie to a power plant to call for help. I didn’t mind the walk, but oh, the bulls that gave me the eye as I passed. In the middle of the Wyoming prairie? No trees to climb if one decided to give me chase.
- I once competed, rather badly, in a powder puff car race. I love cars. What can I say?
- The first time I played craps in Las Vegas, I left my money on the pass line and let it run for four straight times because I wasn’t sure it was mine. Finally the man beside me, who’d lost each time, told me I could take the money. It was mine. That was just before he left, disgusted.
- I swear mamas give their babies sweet tea in their bottles here in the South.
- Cole lives in a barn that converted into the best house ever!
- Kudzu really is the plant that ate the South.
The luxury of staying home when the
weather turns nasty, of working in PJs and bare feet, and the fact that
daydreaming is not only permissible but encouraged, are a few of the reasons
middle school teacher Lynnette Austin gave up the classroom to write full-time.
Lynnette grew up in Pennsylvania’s Alleghany Mountains, moved to Upstate New
York, then to the Rockies in Wyoming. Presently she and her husband divide
their time between Southwest Florida’s beaches and Georgia’s Blue Ridge
Mountains. A finalist in RWA's Golden Heart Contest, PASIC's Book of Your Heart
Contest, and Georgia Romance Writers' Maggie Contest, she’s published five
books as Lynnette Hallberg. Having grown up in a small town, that’s where her
heart takes her—to those quirky small towns where everybody knows
everybody...and all their business, for better or worse.
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