Brady Collins made a mistake.
That mistake left him married with a baby son, then divorced. Now his ex-wife is dead, and he’s learning to navigate life as a solo parent. But then his in-laws sue for custody, saying Brady isn’t Sam’s father. Oops.
Hope Daniels is happy to help.
She loves little Sam as if he was her own. And he might be: Brady’s lawyer mistakenly thinks Hope and Brady are engaged. He points out that being engaged might help Brady in the upcoming custody battle, but not as much as them being married would. So Hope proposes a solution: getting married to make sure Brady gets to keep his son.
The marriage of convenience trope is relatively common in historical romance, but not so common in contemporary. I suspect this is because it can be hard to find a scenario where the circumstances behind the marriage of convenience makes sense. It often reads like a contrived way of getting the characters where the author wants them: married. Sure, the fake engagement and marriage is contrived, but it works for these characters.
My one issue with Honeysuckle Dreams was that Brady was too perfect. Sure, he had problems: his son, his ex-wife’s family, his mother. But they were all external problems. Fixing them relied on other people, not on Brady and his own character journey.
Hope was a much more interesting character.
She’s been in love before, in high school. That relationship ended badly. Her boyfriend collapsed and died in right in front of her at a high school basketball game. It took Hope years to recover and she’s still not sure she’s ready to risk her heart again. And that’s not a good way to begin a marriage, even a marriage of convenience.
Honeysuckle Dreams is the second book in Denise Hunter’s Blue Ridge Romance series, following Blue Ridge Sunrise. She’s also written Sweetbriar Cottage. It isn’t officially part of the Blue Ridge Romance series, but is set in the same town before the events of Blue Ridge Sunrise, and features some of the same characters.
Overall, Honeysuckle Dreams was an excellent contemporary romance, although I didn’t think it measured up to the outstanding Sweetbriar Cottage. Mind you, that’s a hard act for any author to follow.
Thanks to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.
About Denise Hunter
Denise Hunter is the internationally published bestselling author of more than 30 books, including “The Convenient Groom” and “A December Bride” which have been made into Hallmark movies. She has appeared on the The 700 club and won awards such as The Holt Medallion Award, The Carol Award, The Reader’s Choice Award, The Foreword Book of the Year Award, and is a RITA finalist.
Denise writes heartwarming, small-town love stories. Her readers enjoy the vicarious thrill of falling in love and the promise of a happily-ever-after sigh as they savor the final pages of her books.
In 1996, inspired by the death of her grandfather, Denise began her first book, writing while her children napped. Two years later it was published, and she’s been writing ever since. Her husband says he inspires all her romantic stories, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too!
When Denise isn’t orchestrating love lives on the written page, she enjoys traveling with her family, drinking good coffee, and playing drums. Denise makes her home in Indiana where she and her husband raised three boys and are currently enjoying an empty nest.
Find Denise Hunter online at:
About Honeysuckle Dreams
Brady’s attorney tips him off that one major life change would virtually assure him of winning guardianship of baby Sam at the final hearing: an impending marriage. And his friend Hope is willing to step in as the loving and devoted fiance.
Local radio celebrity Hope Daniels has been driven by a solitary goal her entire life, and after a happy accident she’s finally offered her dream job. But if the truth comes out about her arrangement with Brady, she may miss the chance of a lifetime and stand in the way of a dear friend’s dreams.
As Brady and Hope make sacrifices to help each other in their times of need, they risk uncovering a truth neither of them expects to find.
You can find Honeysuckle Dreams online at:
Amazon | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong
Former free spirit Zoe Collins swore she’d never again set foot in Copper Creek or speak to the man who broke her heart. But return she must when her beloved Granny dies, leaving the family legacy to Zoe—a peach orchard nestled at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
James L. Rubart is 28 years old, but lives trapped inside an older man’s body. He thinks he’s still young enough to water ski like a madman and dirt bike with his two grown sons, and loves to send readers on journeys they’ll remember months after they finish one of his stories.
Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, Lauren now lives with her husband and two daughters in Homewood, just outside Birmingham. In addition to her fiction, she writes a monthly newspaper column about life, faith, and how funny (and hard) it is to be a parent. On any given day, she’d rather be at the beach with her family and a stack of books.
Betsy and Ty Franklin, owners of Franklin Dairy Farm in southern Alabama, have long since buried their desire for children of their own. While Ty manages their herd of dairy cows, Betsy busies herself with the farm’s day-to-day operations and tries to forget her dream of motherhood. But when her free-spirited sister, Jenna, drops off her two young daughters for “just two weeks,” Betsy’s carefully constructed wall of self-protection begins to crumble.
As a Christian author and homeschooling mom, my life is random and often chaotic—but abundantly blessed! I’m the wife of a super-charged husband and the mother of three high-energy daughters, and as such I’ve become a master at spinning plates—until they crash and I remember how much I need God’s grace. The journey is filled with both good times and extraordinary challenges, and now I’d like to peel back the curtain and share some of it with you!
Lindsay Harrel is a lifelong book nerd with a B.A. in journalism and M.A. in English. She lives in Arizona with her young family and two golden retrievers in serious need of training. Lindsay has held a variety of jobs, including curriculum editor for two universities, medical and business writer, and copywriter for a digital marketing agency. Now she juggles stay-at-home mommyhood with working freelance jobs, teaching college English courses online, and—of course—writing novels.
Broken-down walls and crumbling stones seemed to possess a secret language all their own.
Kristy Cambron has a background in art and design, but she fancies life as a vintage-inspired storyteller. Her debut novel, The Butterfly and the Violin, was named to Library Journal’s Best Books of 2014 and nominated for RT Book Reviews’ Choice Awards Best Inspirational Novel of 2014 and for the 2015 INSPY Awards for Best Debut Novel. Her second novel, A Sparrow in Terezin, was named Library Journal’s Pick of the Month (Christian Fiction) for February 2015 and a Top Pick for RT Book Reviews. Kristy holds a degree in Art History from Indiana University. She lives in Indiana with her husband and three young sons.