by Debbie Macomber
I've always liked Debbie Macomber's books. Perhaps because so many of them are set in Seattle or across Elliot Bay on the peninsula. She writes romance with hardship and she's not an all steamy-have-to-take-a-cold-shower type of author. Her romances usually bloom realistically the way most do in real life. She doesn't do the he-slapped-her-and-she-fell-into-his-bulging-with-muscles-arms-in-hot-desire romance, if that can be called romance.
However, I think my desire to read romances has dwindled.
Twenty Wishes is a story about a small group of widows who decide to make a list of twenty wishes that will encourage them to move on with their lives and help them fulfill some dreams. They are careful not to call them goals, which must be obtainable and for which you could write an action plan. They are simply wishes that one may or may not have control over making come true. As they share the idea of their wish list, more friends and family take to the idea of creating wish lists of their own. Powerful things can happen when you put positive energy into this kind of a list.
Of course in the manner of any good romance, everyone realizes their most important wishes. What kind of a feel good book would this be if that weren't true? But sometimes we don't see our wishes fulfilled in the way we expect them to be, but a wish fulfilled is a wish fulfilled. And sometimes when one wish is granted, it simultaneously grants another's wish. Of course there is plenty of heartache and trouble on the way to reclaiming happiness.
Twenty Wishes takes place back on Blossom Street. This might be important for those that have read a Good Yarn and some of the associated books. Blossom Street is a fictional Seattle city neighborhood that I know I would love to visit.
I give Twenty Wishes 3 of 5 shots. Not because it's not a good book, it is. It's just not my genre any longer.
