Does a second chance at life and love always involve surrender?
A three-year old son, a struggling café, and fading memories are all Robin Price has left of her late husband. As the proud owner of Willow Tree Café in small town Peaks, Iowa, she pours her heart into every muffin she bakes and espresso she pulls, thankful for the sense of purpose and community the work provides.
So when developer Ian McKay shows up in Peaks with plans to build condos where her café and a vital town ministry are located, she isn’t about to let go without a fight.
As stubborn as he is handsome, Ian won’t give up easily. His family’s business depends on his success in Peaks. But as Ian pushes to seal the deal, he wonders if he has met his match. Robin’s gracious spirit threatens to undo his resolve, especially when he discovers the beautiful widow harbors a grief that resonates with his own.
With polarized opinions forming all over town, business becomes unavoidably personal and Robin and Ian must decide whether to cling to the familiar or surrender their plans to the God of Second Chances.
Katie Ganshert in her own words – “I’m a slightly-frazzled, ever-inquisitive Midwest gal who’s passionate about Jesus, my family, writing, and all things romance, which is exactly what I write. Stories about flawed, broken characters who find faith and fall in love. When I’m not plotting ways to get my hero and heroine to cross paths, I enjoy being silly and laughing with my hunk of a husband, playing make-believe with my wild-child of a son, hanging out with the crazy but lovable junior high students at my church, and chatting with my girlfriends at Panera®.”
My Impressions:
“Look! I am making all things new!” Revelation 21:5 (NET)
Wishing on Willows, Katie Ganshert’s sophomore novel, is a testament to God’s grace and love in making all things new. A story of broken dreams and unfulfilled hopes becomes a story of beauty from ashes. If you like contemporary women’s fiction, I recommend this book.
Robin Price had dreams, dreams that included children, a home and running a cafe with her husband Micah. Now Micah is dead, and she is desperately trying to keep the dreams from slipping through her fingers. Ian McKay comes to town with his own losses and disappointments and dreams tucked away in the past. He is determined to prove to his father and his company that he still has what it takes to build what the small town of Peaks, Iowa needs for growth. But Robin and Ian’s wants, needs and desires are on a collision course. One of them will come out the winner, while the other will lose big.
Told in the third person with first person reminiscences by Robin breaking the action, Wishing on Willows is a quiet novel about ordinary people with an extraordinary God. Ganshert does a great job of exploring the tension between what has been and what could be by using the struggling small town of Peaks and its need for innovation and growth. The characters she creates are very real, and their hurts and efforts to protect themselves from new pain are ones a reader can well identify with. This is a novel of the wonder of God bringing grace from pain, joy from mourning and beauty from tears.
Recommended.
(Thank you to Waterbrook Press for a review copy of this book. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)
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