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The Romance Readers Connection Book Review
Six years before this story begins, Caroline Rogers, barely out of her teens, finds herself needing to raise her two younger siblings. Adopted by the Rogers couple as a young child, Caroline joined the family before Macie and Sam were born. When their parents tragically died within days of each other, Caroline gave up her dream of going to college, sold the family farm, moved the three of them to town in Redbud Hill, and set out to be both mother and father to Macie and Sam. She has provided for them with her photography business but her real dream is to work for National Geographic as a photographer.
Caroline is about to send Sam off to college; Macie has her last year of high school and then she will also be gone, freeing Caroline to pursue her career. Dr. Mick Larsen is a psychiatrist who grew up in their small town and has now returned, purchasing the Rogers family farm that Caroline sold years before. Caroline finds herself alternately annoyed that this handsome man has purchased "their" farm while drawn to his sensitivity, warmth, and deep pain.
Caroline and Mick are characters with a boatload of emotional baggage. Caroline is trying to get past her mother’s suicide when she was a little girl; Mick is dealing with his taciturn, physician father’s chronic displeasure with his only son’s choices. Mick has returned to Redbud Hill for a painful reason involving patients. Much of this book is spent examining both of these characters and their histories.
At the same time, someone seems to be vandalizing parts of the town and surrounding countryside and this ends up closely related to Caroline. One of the best parts of this book is the sweet romance between Caleb and Macie, high school kids who fall in love. Other characters include Mick’s parents, Sam, and various community members.
I can always count on Susan Crandall to craft a well-written novel with carefully drawn characters who suffer from plenty of angst. She has not disappointed with this later offering. The author does a particularly good job of correctly characterizing Mick’s role as a psychiatrist. This is a good book to read on a cold winter evening.
- Jeri Neal
Romance Reader at Heaart Book Review
Rating: Top Pick!
I simply fell in love with Susan Crandall’s new release, A KISS IN WINTER. It is an emotionally charged romantic contemporary taking place in a small Kentucky town. This character driven romance is a breathtaking read from the first page to last.
It is hard not to fall in love and become emotionally attached to the characters in A KISS IN WINTER. Each of the main characters—Caroline, her younger sister Macie, Macie's boyfriend, Caleb, and Dr. Mick Larson—are all wonderful and inspiring. Each of them is struggling through a difficult phase in their lives...
... Caroline and Mick are so likable, that you truly want them to fall in love and live happily-every-after.
I have to admit that Susan Crandall made me cry, but I'll forgive her. She wrote the most touching scene involving Caroline and the moment when she realized she couldn't live without Mick! I loved it!
I thoroughly enjoyed Susan Crandall's A KISS IN WINTER. I definitely recommend you read it!
- Julie Kornhaus
Library Journal Book Review
After putting her life on hold for years to raise her younger stepsiblings following their parents’ deaths, freelance photographer Caroline Rogers has only one more year before she is free to leave her small Kentucky hometown and explore the world. But when psychiatrist Mick Larsen gives up his Chicago practice, buys Caroline’s old family far, and returns home to put his past behind him, Caroline is torn between a man she is coming to love and her cherished dreams. A strong but troubled heroine and a hero who must learn to forgive himself find healing an love in an emotionally rich, multilayerd story that explores issues of grief, guild, mental instability, and family duty with consummate skill and perceptiveness.
– Library Journal
Fresh Fiction Book Review
A KISS IN WINTER is a well-written mystery with a great love story. It’s an emotionally charges story about following your dreams, going home again, relationships, family conflicts and struggles. The characters are compelling and complex. Once I started this book, I couldn’t put it down. Then when I finished, I called my local bookstore and ordered all of Susan Crandall’s backlist titles.
– Jory Reedy
Contemporary Romance Writers Book Review
With a tension-rich mystery and beautiful love story of two wounded souls, author Susan Crandall captures readers’ hearts once again with A KISS IN WINTER.
A perfect example of a Contemporary Romance; A KISS IN WINTER will fire the emotions with characters that are realistic and all too human; so realistic they feel remarkably like family. A moving family drama that does not rely on sex to carry the story to a dramatic conclusion; this reader was hard pressed not to “gush” while writing the review. I found nothing to fault in the entire book. Brilliant characterization, edgy suspense, romance and so much more mark A KISS IN WINTER a perfect “10” in this reader’s opinion and cemented the author as an "auto-buy"; for me. I plan on purchasing several copies for gifts. Bravo, Ms Crandall!
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