Story for the Week
It is believed that women spend their childhoods dreaming about their happily ever after. Countless movies and television shows have centered around a female character planning the perfect wedding. Estimates indicate that the wedding industry in 2024 will generate nearly $220 billion in revenue. 🤯
When I was young, I didn’t want a big wedding. I always said I wanted to run away to get married and then come home to have a big party. I had seen so many friends and family agonize over the perfect venue, the perfect dress, the perfect cake…but nothing ever goes perfectly. The best laid plans and all that.
Then one day, probably in my mid- to late 20s, my dad heard me say again that I wanted to run away to get married. His response? “You mean you would deprive me of the opportunity to walk you down the aisle?” How exactly was I supposed to respond to that except to say I would have a traditional wedding?
Fast forward about 10 years when I finally met my future husband Dennis, and I ended up eloping to New York to get married. Sorry, Dad!
Planning a wedding is one of the themes in Book #15 of The Wishing Tree series, reviewed below. These are all very quick reads, most under 200 pages. If you haven’t read any of them, I recommend starting at the beginning. If you already read the first 13 when they released in 2022, books 14-17 are available now.
Full Book List:
- Book 1: The Wishing Tree
- Book 2: I Wish… by Amanda Prowse
- Book 3: Wish You Were Here by Kay Bratt
- Book 4: Wish Again by Tammy L. Grace
- Book 5: Workout Wishes & Valentine Kisses by Barbara Hinske
- Book 6: A Parade of Wishes by Camille Di Maio
- Book 7: Careful What You Wish by Ashley Farley
- Book 8: Gone Wishing by Jessie Newton
- Book 9: Wishful Thinking by Kay Bratt
- Book 10: Overdue Wishes by Tammy L. Grace
- Book 11: A Whole Heap of Wishes by Amanda Prowse
- Book 12: Wishes of Home by Barbara Hinske
- Book 13: Wishful Witness by Tonya Kappes
- Book 14: A Wish for Forgiveness by Amanda Prowse
- Book 15: Wishful Tails by Barbara Hinske
- Book 16: One More Wish by Tammy L. Grace
- Book 17: A Wish in the Wind by Kay Bratt
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐½
3.5 Stars for Wishful Tails by Barbara Hinske
202 pages
Publisher: Casa del Northern Publishing
Publication Date: October 17, 2024
Purchased on Amazon.
Publisher’s Description
Wishes in branches tied with string. Someone’s hopes. Another’s dreams.
As the cameras roll for Season 2 of hit home-improvement show Wishes of Home, Pam Olson and Steve Turner dive into their biggest project yet: building the first no-kill animal shelter in their region. With their wedding just around the corner, they find themselves juggling work, wedding plans, and community service, while trying to squeeze in a moment or two of romance.
When a wildfire threatens their community, Pam and Steve rally the town of Linden Falls to come together in the face of disaster. With a nearby animal shelter threatened by the flames, the generous community of Linden Falls bands together to finish the new shelter, and take in and treat the four-legged evacuees.
But as the flames subside, the couple faces heartbreak when their wedding venue is destroyed, and Steve’s loyal black Lab disappears into the chaos. Join Pam and Steve on a journey of resilience, compassion, and the unwavering hope that even amidst the darkest of times, miracles can still happen.
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Main Characters:
- Pam Olson – personal trainer, dating Steve Turner, prepping for the second season of the home-improvement show Wishes of Home that she hosts as they work on the first no-kill animal shelter in their region
- Steve Turner – personal trainer, dating Pam Olson, planning his proposal to Pam with the help of her mother
- Neva Cabot – owner of the Wishing Tree Inn and considered by the town to be the curator of wishes
Book #15 in The Wishing Tree series gets us to the happily ever after of Pam Olson and Steve Turner, who we meet in Workout Wishes & Valentine Kisses (Folklore or Magic…and the Romance of Wishes) and see their relationship develop in Wishes of Home (Wishing a Way to Build a Forever Home).
The publisher’s description pretty much tells the whole story. Steve prepares to propose while he and Pam are gearing up for the second season of the home-improvement show Pam hosts. This season they’re building a no-kill animal shelter, which was introduced at the end of the book Wishes of Home. All of their wedding plans magically fall into place (it IS Linden Falls after all), with their wedding the weekend after the shelter is scheduled to be complete.
As the saying goes, though, about the best laid plans, things go haywire pretty quickly. There’s a wildfire, their wedding venue is destroyed, Steve’s dog goes missing. As is always the case in Linden Falls though, the residents and visitors come together to get us as readers to the happily ever after. The entire Wishing Tree series really is about community and empathy and resilience, and this story embodies all of that.
The thing that challenged me…these books are designed to be quicker reads, and this one comes in at about 200 pages. A lot happens in those pages, and I don’t feel like we get any detail about anything. The story really begins with Steve preparing to propose. We know that the wedding gets scheduled immediately following the season of Wishes of Home, but we don’t get any of the season. The book basically goes straight from the start of the season to the wildfire the weekend the shelter is supposed to open.
About halfway through the book, Pam and Steve are telling Steve’s family about their engagement, which means they haven’t started filming yet. In the very next chapter, the owner of the hardware store who is sponsoring the build and donating the building thanks Neva for her food donations for the construction crew. Thirty pages later, construction is almost finished, and we haven’t seen any of it.
In the final 60 pages of the book, there’s the wildfire, animals get rescued and treated, Steve’s dog goes missing and returns, and Pam and Steve get married. It just felt like too much in a relatively small number of pages.
I think the author missed some opportunities here, but it’s a nice wrap-up of Pam and Steve’s story and a worthwhile addition to the series.
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