With This Ring by Amy Clipston Review

 Happy New Year to all my Bookish Lovelies :)

I hope your year is off to a wonderful start, and I'm so thankful you've taken the time to drop on by The Preppy Book Princess today for another book review.

I'm Kirby, and I'm excited to welcome you to my little bookish corner of the internet for my first post of 2025!

I'm excited to be sharing a review today with you all of an upcoming release by one of my all time favorite authors.

However, before I dive right into that, I wanted to take a moment to address a couple of things.

I'm sure some of you noticed that I've been absent a bit more from my blog this past year than in any year prior, and honestly, 2024 was one of the hardest years I've ever personally gone through. I was going through some pretty hard stuff, and some days it was hard to have the energy to want to pop on here and seem so upbeat when that's not at all how I was feeling in real life.

On top of that, last year unfortunately I became a little disillusioned with certain aspects of the book blogging world, and I felt like I needed to take a step back and evaluate a few things.

After taking a few weeks to pray and think things through, I still feel like God wants me to use my space here to encourage others and talk about Him, and so that's going to be my focus going forward.

I also want to get back to truly loving reading, and I don't want it to feel like a chore which it had unfortunately started to do last year. I'm still excited to read books and tell others about them, but it may mean slowing down the number of ARC's I accept to make sure I can still keep up with everything else expected of me.

All that being said, I'm feeling refreshed and ready for a new year here on The Preppy Book Princess, and I've chosen my words for 2025 to be dedication and discipline. I want to be dedicated and disciplined in everything this year, and that includes my blog and my bookstagram. I hope you'll all join me this year in shining a light for Jesus here on The Preppy Book Princess.

And now let's jump right into today's review. 

With This Ring by Amy Clipston:

Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Publication Date: January 14th, 2025

Genre: Clean Romance/Contemporary

Synopsis:

Bestselling author Amy Clipston transports readers back to the picturesque town of Flowering Grove, North Carolina, in this heartwarming contemporary romance.

Dakota Jamison is living her dream running Fairytale Bridal Shop in her hometown of Flowering Grove, NC. But despite helping others find their Happily Ever Afters, getting married and settling down isn't on her radar. In fact, she decided she'd never get engaged again after Hudson Garrity broke her heart and left her to pursue a career in New York City. Besides, she doesn't have time for a relationship between running her shop and giving roller skating lessons at the local rink.

Hudson Garrity made his dream a reality when he started his own software company in the big city, but now that he's sold it, he's at a crossroads. He's finally made enough money to provide a comfortable life for his younger sister and the aunt who raised them after their parents died. Hoping that a return home will help return his focus, he's instead thrown into family chaos and roped into helping his sister plan her wedding . . . bringing him once more into contact with the one who got away.

As Hudson's sister's wedding date draws closer, he starts to remember how much he loved Flowering Grove and the smalltown life. And as he and Dakota start to wonder what could have been, they reevaluate what went wrong between them.

Will Dakota and Hudson find it in their hearts to forgive each other and forge a new life together?

(synopsis from goodreads)

My Review:

With this Ring is a sweet and clean second chance romance by best selling author Amy Clipston. I've long been a fan of her wonderful Amish romances, but she's also making a name for herself in the sweet romance market, and I was excited to dive into another of her titles set in the fictional community of Flowering Grove. 

Dakota and Hudson were young sweethearts who separated under harsh circumstances with him choosing to follow a career path in New York, and her choosing to remain in Flowering Grove. When Hudson's younger sister gets engaged, she chooses Dakota's bridal shop for her custom made gown. As Dakota and Hudson navigate seeing each other for the first time in nearly a decade, feelings will emerge that showcase they never truly moved on from each other. However, with all of the reasons for their break up still firmly in place, can these two ever truly move on to their own happily ever after?

A sweet but heart wrenching story about the depths we'll go to for the people we love, With This Ring is another wonderful sweet romance from Amy Clipston and a perfect story to start out the New Year with. While I wasn't the biggest fan of Hudson to begin with, he grew on me as the reasons for his decisions were revealed, and I loved how this played such a big part of the story. I also adored the familial relationships, and how both Hudson and Dakota sacrifice for the sake of their loved ones who mean the world to them both.

I will say I wasn't a huge fan of the somewhat cheating subplot that emerges and I still continue to wish that Amy's contemporaries would have a faith element included, but overall this was a lovely story that I'd recommend to anyone looking for a clean romance to start the year off with. 

I'd still say that Finding You is my favorite of her contemporaries, but this one was a worthy contender in its own right.

Final Rating: 4/5.

Thanks so much to Thomas Nelson for allowing me to advance read and review this one!

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary advance reader copy of this novel from the publisher (Thomas Nelson) via NetGalley. I was not required to give a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and this is my honest review.

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