About Books #33: Winter at Cedarwood Lodge
Am I going totally crazy on the Christmas books? Maybe. Do I regret that for even a second? Absolutely not. The latest addition (thanks, Netgalley!) is Winter at Cedarwood Lodge and – if I thought the previous couple of were as good as it was ever going to get. Well, this one was at least as, if not even more amazing than the previous ones I’ve read!
I was offered an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for a review. All opinions expressed are strictly my own.
Story
This winter it’s time to fall in love at Cedarwood Lodge…
After years of dreaming, Clio Winters is finally fulfilling her childhood dream of renovating the gorgeous old Cedarwood Lodge in Evergreen and turning it into the perfect destination for celebrations, weddings and extravagant birthday parties. The huge property used to be a bustling holiday camp, now Clio wants to bring it back to its halcyon days – which will be a lot of hard work!
Returning back to the small town of her youth she’s glad to have one of her best friends still around to lean on, Micah who is just as solid as he used to be. But with her own secrets pushing her to run from her glamorous life in New York, she’ll have to tread carefully, especially when the far-too-handsome-for-his-own-good contractor, Kai, shows up on her doorstep…
Sure she’s here in Evergreen to change her life, but there is no way she’s falling in love!
Characters
Clio is, in many ways, very typical. You know the whole “girl couples everyone else up but stays single forever”-plot? Yeah, that’s this book.
Good news is: Clio is more than just that character. As is Kay, as is Micah (love that guy, by the way. Any book needs a best friend to fall in love with, and Micah is totally that guy). She’ didn’t quite come back to her childhood town because New York was so amazing – and the actual consequences of the fall-out she left behind are dealt with in a pretty realistic way.
Probably the best thing for me – maybe even more so than Clio and Kai, better than the incredible thing this entire house is? Clio’s mum. You know there’s a story there, from the very beginning, but the way this character and her journey are worked out. And that’s just a sort of background story!
Seriously, any writer who pays as much attention to the stories of “secondary characters” as to that of the main character? I’m already more inclined to like their writing.
Narration
You know those pictures you see go past on Pinterest or Tumblr? The ones that makes you feel like, really, probably those places don’t actually exist? That’s what Cedarwood Lodge’s surroundings sound like. So yeah, kudo’s to Rebecca Raisin for that.
Maybe the one thing I would have as a remark is that, quite often, the author seems to jump ahead in the timeline without really giving any explanation. Then, at other times, she seems to fit 8 hours of work into a 2 hour bit of the morning. Quite frankly, these characters either have superpowers or time is just really wonky in Cedarwood Lodge-universe 🙂 As does money, now that I come to think about it. While Clio states a couple of times that she needs something to work out for financial reasons, she does seem to have a knack for finding more money on her bank account every single time 🙂
Overall: 4/5
When I read this, I really needed a book to take my mind off everything I had on my to do-list. And if you, like me, need some escapism? Preferably with some Christmas-sprinkles on top? Then this is probably the book for you. It’ll make you smile, you’ll feel for the characters and at the end… Well, let’s just say I’ve been trying to pinpoint where exactly Cedarwood Lodge would be for a couple of days now! Got to visit that place, you know 🙂
If you want to read Winter at Cedarwood Lodge yourself now, you can find it on Amazon
-Saar
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