Love by the Book by Colleen Coble Review

 Hello Bookish Lovelies :)

I pray today finds you all doing well, and I want to thank you all for joining me for another book review here on The Preppy Book Princess.

I recently had a chance to finally finish a book series that I started quite awhile ago, and I honestly can't believe I waited so long to finish it.

The Smitten novellas are a wonderful collection of stories from four of the best authors in the Christian fiction genre, and I'd read the first two collections (consisting of novellas 1-8) a couple of years back, but I'd never gotten around to reading the last collection.

I'm so thankful I recently had the chance to change that, and today I'd like to share my review of novella number nine with you all.

Keep on reading down below to find out what I ended up thinking about it.

Love by the Book by Colleen Coble:

Source: Christmas Gift from my Hubby

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Publication Date: January 21st, 2014

Genre: Christian Fiction/Contemporary/Novella Collection

Synopsis:

The century-old "Gentlewoman's Guide to Love and Courtship" is no ordinary book club choice. But for the little book club in Smitten, Vermont, it might be their best book yet!

This book club selection reads like a mystery to Heather. But when Paul comes back into her life, their mystery leads to romance.

Heather is the Smitten Book Club's most devoted mystery-genre reader, a single mom, and the resident organic gardener. When she discovers a decades-old tome at a library sale, she thinks it might hold clues leading to buried gold-exactly what one of the members needs to keep her home. She can't resist a mystery that could lead to treasure.

Paul and Heather have history-history she would rather forget. But when he comes back to his hometown of Smitten, he's determined to put down roots. He soon becomes the architect behind a town community garden and enlists Heather's help there in exchange for his own help looking for hidden gold. As they dig into the earth and the clues, they discover something amazing: lasting love

(synopsis from goodreads)

My Review:

Love by the Book is an adorable sweet romance novella that takes readers back to the idyllic small town of Smitten. As the first of the four novellas included in Smitten Book Club, it introduces a bit of a bigger mystery that will play out over the course all four novellas, and gives a bit of background info as to who will be this collection's four main characters.

We mainly follow Heather, a young single mother who has trouble taking another chance on love after her husband abandoned her while pregnant. When Paul, an architect she has an embarrassing hidden history with, comes back to Smitten, she's not prepared for the rush of emotions his presence is about to bring back. As the two end up working together on a town project, and stumble upon a mystery that may help a friend who has recently lost her husband, feelings start to emerge that neither may be prepared to deal with.

A cute and swoon worthy novella that I read practically in one sitting, Love by the Book is a wonderful story, and a great introduction to another round of these delightful novellas.

My only complaints were the fact that the romance and the ending are both a tad rushed, but that's usually to be expected in a novella length word count.

It was still a lovely story, and I look forward to continuing on with the other novellas in this series.

Final Rating: 4/5.

Thanks so much for reading guys! Have a great rest of your day :)

This is not a sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. The photo does not belong to me, and all rights to the respective owners.