Wildflower Season

Wildflower Season, Michelle Major’s first full book in her Carolina Girls series, is enjoyably captivating with a myriad of sweet and heartwarming moments…along with wickedly, laugh out loud banter and repartee that flies fast and furious. The characters are delightfully genuine and relatable, forming an emotional attachment was simply a given…it was quite difficult not to not form an instantaneous emotional connection to Emma, et al. from the opening paragraph.

A Carolina Promise

The introductory story in the Carolina Girls series is a delightfully tender-hearted novella. Holly and Bret’s story is like a warm hug, it leaves you with a not only a smile, but also sigh in your heart. This story sets the tone for the series, where you will find yourself falling instantly in love.

Ms Major has a genuine gift in creating stories that you are able to fully immerse yourself in, completely falling in love with the locale and the characters. I am looking forward to reading more stories in this series.

This ARC book was complimentary, provided by the Publisher and NetGalley. I am voluntarily providing my honest review.

Emma Cantrell was a trust fund baby who worked for her family's trust and married a man who was only after her money. When they divorced and she was left penniless, she knew she wanted a new life, one that her mother was not going to influence. She went to visit her brother in Magnolia, North Carolina, when she fell in love with a dilapidated mansion. She bought the house with the intent to renovate it and open a B&B. Holly is a young woman who is marrying into a rich family, being engaged to an up and coming politician. Both women are in dire straits. The storm of the century that has just passed through has damaged Emma's new home and destroyed the venue where Holly is to be married. Emma offers her place to Holly for the wedding, if she can get it repaired in time. Holly, in turn, gives Emma the name of a man who used to be a contractor to fix her place. Both women set in motion, changes that will affect both their lives.

This is the first book in a new series by Michelle Major, but being set in Magnolia, you will run into characters from her Magnolia Sisters series. You do not need to read Magnolia Sisters to enjoy this series. I really liked Emma. She wanted to stand on her own two feet and not have her life run by her mother. She was willing to take the chances needed to do this, even if there were risks. Cameron Mitchell was a furniture builder, who used to do home construction/renovation. When his wife died, five years earlier, he packed it all in and began to take people out on fishing expeditions instead. He wanted no reminders of his previous life. He blamed himself for her death and so did her mother-in-law. Neither of them wanted to be attracted to one another, but the heart wants what the heart wants. I really liked watching their relationship grow and the beginning of trust develop. The setting was wonderful and added another dimension to the story. The secondary characters all added much to the story. I liked how they changed along with Emma and Cameron. The writing is wonderful and I loved the dialogue and banter between the characters. This is a sweet, romance with some serious themes (grief, infidelity, divorce, forgiveness) to pack a bit of a punch. I am definitely looking forward to the next Carolina Girls story.

I really like Michelle Major’s writing.
Emma is divorced and buys a mansion to turn into an inn. A storm hits and now the inn needs a lot of work.
Enter Cameron, widower and contractor and brother to Holly who wants to hold her wedding at the inn.
This is a cozy read about two people who want to be left alone, falling slowly in love.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Even if it's well written it didn't work for me as I didn't care for the characters and the story fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I picked this book to read before realizing it was part of a series, but I didn't feel like I missed out on anything by not reading other books in this series. This book pulls you in right off with the first few pages and keeps you going., Emma is working on an old mansion and needs help with the building parts and Cameron who hasn't built much since his wife died finds himself begrudgingly helping Emma. The more time they spend together, the more they are attracted to one another. A cute romantic story about moving on from previous loss.

Congratulations! Your review for Wildflower Season, captioned
below, has been published. Visit
<https://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=74738> to view your
published review.

Please share your review via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest,
Instagram and other social media venues. Include the #FFreview
hashtag or @FreshFiction in your posts.

This cover immediately drew my eye and I knew I had to read it. Another win for Michelle Major and the cover was a bonus.

Because I typically read and review either Christian fiction or otherwise clean reads, it is important to note right off the bat that Wildflower Season is neither of these things. The steamiest romances I tend to read are that of Nicholas Sparks, so to put it into perspective based on that... this one had a few love scenes that I would say were perhaps just a bit steamier than that. They still weren't overly graphic compared to others on the market, but enough to make my modest self blush anyway! There was also a bit of language, but not a ton. Again, with my preference for clean reads the language and the love scenes are certainly things that I personally could have gone without... but I cannot hold them against the story too much as this doesn't claim itself to be anything but a contemporary romance! Still, certainly worth noting if you are a more conservative reader.

Taking those out of the equation, I actually really enjoyed the story itself. With a run down inn, a wedding on the verge of disaster and a widow with the weight of the world on his shoulders, this book truly is a book all about second chances... and I truly enjoyed getting to know each of the unique characters. To me, it felt very much like it could be the next great Hallmark movie... and I love a good Hallmark movie! It was a sweet story that really drew me in and had me rooting not just for the main characters but for the side characters introduced too. While it may not be the style of story that I typically prefer, I would certainly give the next books in the series a read too! If you love a good romance and don't mind a little language and a love scene or three, this is certainly one to check out.

**I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley for consideration. All thoughts are my own.

Emma is still dealing with the aftermath of a failed marriage and starting over by being closer to her brother and revamping the Wildflower INN. Problem is a hurricane destroyed most of it and needs to fix that with the help of local recluse Cameron. On top of that shes hosting a wedding there so needs to rush through the repairs as well as helping the bride get her dress, find a caterer and other tidbits. There is so much to do in so little time.

Man, I devoured this book in one sitting. Not sure how I managed that but that goes to say that I really enjoyed this book. I love the idea of starting things over and there was so much going on to stress about but Emma was finding her way and I loved the journey of that. There was also the bit of romance in where Cameron was involved. Cameron was still hung up on the death of his late wife and was feeling a lot of guilt and it was interesting seeing him work through things and begin his life again instead of hiding from those who are around and close to him. Overall this was a pretty great book I really enjoyed it.

Received a copy of this book for review. Overall it is a good read for me. Love the chemistry between the main characters. Love all the characters. What I love is that each of them does make a difference to the story as it developed. Like to read how the characters In the story are interrelated to each other. It make the story more exciting to read. The setting of the story is nice and is fit nicely to the story.Story plot are well penned out, with a slight twist to it in the end.

3/5 Stars

** I received this as an E-ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review, Thank you!**

This was just an okay read for me, I just feel like there wasn't anything that really made me feel connected to any of the characters. This may just be a personal preference thing, as I also wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style. I can honestly see why someone would enjoy this book. It was just a little slow for me. I kept waiting for something big and dramatic to happen. Overall just an average read, it was an easy-to-read story that didn't take too much mental power to read through.

Emma comes from an affluent family and with that lifestyle comes expectations. After the demise of her marriage Emma decides to visit Magnolia to spend some time with her brother and is enchanted not only by the town but by a building she wants to convert into an Inn. Rather than her mother supporting her plan she now finds herself struggling financially to complete the renovations especially when a storm could threaten all the progress she has made.

Cam is still dealing with the guilt and regrets after his wife passed away five years earlier. Although his carpentry skills may be rusty when his former sister in-law asks him to help Emma so that she can use the Inn for her wedding he can’t say no. When he and Emma start working together he is conflicted as she is the first person to make him feel since his wife passed away and he must decide whether to embrace them or deny them.
Both Emma and Cam bear the emotional scars from their pasts that is causing turmoil in their present and they are both dealing with difficult family situations as well. This is a story about healing and forgiveness and Emma and Cam fight for the future they both deserve.

I am so excited that Michelle Major is going to release new books in the same universe of The Magnolia Sisters series. We get new batches of books with fresh new characters. I was so ready to fall in love with Wildflower Season but I felt a little disappointed though. I should have contained my excitement about Michelle Major writing new books instead of getting disappointed. I don't know what it is but I felt Wildflower Season had great potential. It's just too slow paced throughout the book. I know it is setting up the series since we meet multiple people but it just took too long. And it took even longer for Emma and Cameron to form something together. Their romance was such a back burner that it did not feel like a romance story until the end which was a bit too late for my taste.

I loved every glorious moment of this Magnolia spinoff! WILDFLOWER SEASON is the first book in Michelle Major’s brand new series The Carolina Girls that is taking place in her beloved town of Magnolia, North Carolina. For readers of the prior series, you will delightfully reconnect with several familiar faces and feel like you’re home for a visit. The new characters have rich backstories, tantalizing secrets to uncover and loads of chemistry sparking off of each other. I’m looking forward to more to come in this cozy town.
Emma is a strong character. She used a turning point in her life as a catalyst to finally start living life on her own terms and going after her dreams for a change. I loved her kind heart and go-getter spirit.
Holly is a sweetheart, and though she is up to her eyeballs in turmoil, she doesn’t despair, she just finds a way to cope as life throws her lemons.
Cam pulled on my heart the most as he agreed to help the person he still thinks of as his little sister. Watching him learn to live again was endearing.
I highly recommend this story to anyone who enjoys a small town romance filled with hurdles to overcome as they dance towards that happily ever after.

I adored the Magnolia sisters series that precedes this book. I’m so glad that Michelle major gave us more of Magnolia NC. Emma and Cams story is so sweet and full of fresh Starts and second chances. They are a great couple and I loved this story.

Emma Cantrell is thinking she might have bit off more than she could chew when she bought a mansion with the hopes of turning it into an Inn. When a storm does major damage to the Inn, she is scrambling, but then when she also promises to help a distressed bride have her dream wedding, Emma needs help, and she needs it fast. Holly, the bride to be convinces Emma that all she needs to do is convince Holly’s brother-in-law to do the repairs, and everything will work out. When Emma meets the cantankerous brother-in-law, she is once again wondering if she can pull this wedding off.

Cameron Mitchell is a hermit. He blames himself for the death of his wife and has not spoken to friends or family in a few years. When a little sprite of a woman shows up on his doorstep begging for his help, he remembers a promise he made to his sister-in-law Holly years ago. A promise that if she ever needed him, he would be there. Can Cameron put the past aside and help Holly and Emma?

This was such a delightful book by Michelle Major. The characters were written brilliantly, and I loved how all the characters personality played off each other. We also get a little peek into the lives of some other women from Magnolia that I am hoping will be featured in future books. My favourite part was how cheeky Emma was and the banter between her and Cam. This book is part of a new series called Carolina Girls, but there are recurring characters from the Magnolia Sisters series where we first met Emma briefly. You could read this book on its own as the Magnolia Sisters background is mentioned in this book as well. Thank you so much to Harlequin Publishing, Michelle Major and Netgalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my unbiased opinion. A fabulous new read!

We first met Emma when she visited her brother Ryan who is an DR doctor recuperating from a gunshot wound. She fell in love with a house and dreams of opening an Inn , leaving her position on the board of her family's charitable foubdation, much to the chagrin of her mother.

A storm hits and much damage occurs to the house. Since her mother cut her off, finances are an issue. While drowning get worried at a local bar, she meets a woman whose wedding plans have imploded. Together they team up to renovate the Inn to hold her high profile wedding there.

Enter, Cam, a disgruntled carpenter/fisherman who's related to the bride to be. Both Emma and Cam are recovering from a broken heart. The sparks fly and the fun begins. They learn to open lines of communication and trust their instincts. But can their doomed pasts allowed them to embrace the future? A fun and entertaining story that I recommend.

I received a free ARC eBook from Net Galley and the publisher in exchange for my honest opinions.

Wildflower Season is the first novel in Michelle Major's new Carolina Girls series, which is a spinoff of her earlier Magnolia Series, which I've not read, nor have I read anything by this author before, but the tone and setting of this novel is reminiscent of Sharon Sala's Blessings, Georgia series, which I am following. In comparison, I found Wildflower Season more jumbled, more than a tad overpopulated and extremely unlikely, which is the reason for my giving it 3 stars.

Emma, the heroine, is a divorcee, and daughter of a wealthy family. While visiting her brother who had moved to Magnolia after marrying (I'm assuming his romance was covered in the previous series), fell in love with the small town, and a large, dilapidated old house which once belonged to an artist who was Magnolia's claim to fame. She decides that if it was renovated, it would be the perfect bed and breakfast inn, so leaves her cushy job working for the family foundation, is then disowned by her mother, and with little money (her husband fleeced her in the divorce) and no experience in the hospitality industry, moves to Magnolia. She had recently paid a local contractor most of what money she had to work on the house, but a hundred-year storm severely damaged the house, and with no money, and no income, she must start all over again, and her original contractor isn't replying to her text messages.

Emma has heard that a local fishing charter/tour guide, Cam, a Magnolia native, is a qualified craftsman. Cam is a handsome widower and has been blaming himself for the death of his wife, Dana, in a car accident 5 years earlier, wallowing in guilt. Dana was working several jobs to support them while Cam was starting his career as a woodworking craftsman and carpenter, creating one-of-a-kind furniture pieces with repurposed wood. He wasn't in the car when she crashed, but blames himself anyway and has, over the past five years distanced himself from everyone in town, drinking heavily at the start, totally absorbed in his grief and guilt. He has tried to distance himself from everyone, but his wife's younger sister, Holly, has tried to break through his walls without much success, that is until she somehow manages to meet and fall in love with a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, 12 years her senior, and from a family comparable to the Kennedy's.

The storm that wrecked the inn, also destroyed Holly's wedding venue, the owners of the venue left town, taking her money with them, her gown and the invitations were ruined, and she decides that the new, and unfinished inn would be an ideal place for her wedding, if it can be made ready in 6 weeks. To make that happen, she convinces Cam to help her new friend, Emma, restore and renovate the house/inn. Has the likelihood of this series of events caused your eyes to roll yet? We're not done--Emma can't cook, so she needs to find and hire a caterer, she has no money coming in, so how is she going to find and pay a caterer, find a replacement for Holly's lost wedding gown, and furnish the inn in time to host the pseudo-Kennedy family? And that's just for starters, because just when Emma thinks she's got it together, something else goes wrong.

Additionally, there's Emma's attraction to and no-strings attached at first, sexual relationship with surly, closed-off, hot one minute, cold the next, Cam. Just when you think Cam has finally come out of his self-imposed isolation and is pursuing his relationship with Emma, he reverts back into the hermit he was as the novel opened--unfortunately, that happened once too often for this reader.

Unlike the aforementioned Ms. Sala's Blessings series, which introduced new local residents slowly, Ms. Major introduces almost every inhabitant of Magnolia is this introduction to the series--from a famous wedding dress designer, hiding out from something in Magnolia, to the surly grandson of the local florist who is keeping her business going for her, to he daughter/waitress of the owner of the local Italian restaurant, Angi, who wants to break away from the family business and go out on her own, and on, and on, and on, until you practically needed a scorecard to know who was who. Too much chaos, too many characters, and all too unlikely.

What I did like about this novel is the underlying subtext--this is a novel about loss, about grief, about guilt and self-blame, and about picking yourself up and moving forward despite whatever pitfalls and people are standing in your path. That subtext was what kept me reading this novel, and it was the main reason why I read it to the end, when I wanted to set it aside because so much of it was just too unlikely and too coincidental. Cam certainly needed to stop blaming himself. His former mother-in-law needed to stop blaming him for ruining her daughter's life, Emma needed to come to terms with her controlling matriarch of a mother, who disowned her when she moved to Blessings, Emma also needed to get over what her ex-husband did to fleece her from her savings, and the jury is still out on the dress designer and the caterer, both of whom I am quite sure will be at the center of upcoming novels in the series. I only hope that Ms. Major doesn't overpopulate her upcoming novels the way she did this one.

I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions expressed are my own.

Will also appar at the Romance Reviews Today site: http://romrevtoday.com/

WILDFLOWER SEASON -- Michelle Major
The Carolina Girls, Book 1
HQN
ISBN: 978-1-335-54779-8
May 25, 2021
Contemporary Fiction

Magnolia, North Carolina – Present Day

After the failure of her marriage, Emma Cantrell came to Magnolia and bought an old, rundown mansion belonging to an eccentric artist who had died. She plans to refurbish the mansion into an inn, but a strong windstorm upends the remodeling. With the other contractors busy due to the storm’s damage, she doesn’t know what to do and ends up drinking in a bar. There, she meets Holly, a woman who is looking for a wedding venue after her planned one ended up kaput after the windstorm. After talking about their woes, Holly suggests using the inn for the wedding—if Emma can get it repaired in time. Holly suggests her brother-in-law, who used to be a contractor, be hired to repair the damage and to help get the inn ready for the wedding ceremony and reception. The two pay him a visit.

Cameron Mitchell once built beautiful furniture, but ever since his wife died in an automobile accident, he has basically withdrawn from society and now works as a fishing boat guide. Emma and Holly arrive at his house to ask Cam, who isn’t exactly welcoming though he has a soft spot for his sister-in-law. Soon, Holly convinces Cam to work for Emma. While he is surly and mostly uncommunicative with Emma, they soon prove to be a good working team. He wants to do this for Holly, but it means drawing himself out of his shell and being confronted by the people from his past, including Holly’s mother, who blames him for her daughter’s death.

Meanwhile, Holly is wondering if her wedding ceremony will happen. She is engaged to a U.S. senator and his mother doesn’t think Holly is good enough for her son. Between Cam and her new friendship with Emma, they try to calm her nerves. Emma also hires a couple of women in Magnolia for the wedding. The four women form a bond that makes WILDFLOWER SEASON a tale of friendship.

Getting Emma married is the goal of everyone in WILDFLOWER SEASON. Emma comes from a wealthy family and once sat on the board of their powerful charity foundation—until she felt forced to walk away. Emma’s ex-husband blackmailed her with a sex tape to get her money. Too embarrassed to even tell her family, she moved to Magnolia after visiting her brother, who lives there. But getting the inn ready is proving to be a lot harder than she expected. Then there are the people in town, who haven’t exactly opened their arms to welcome her. Is it because they think Emma is too haughty and will soon be leaving town?

Cam is surly for the better part of WILDFLOWER SEASON. His heart is still broken after losing his wife. Slowly, after going toe-to-toe with Emma, the two build an attraction, one that leads to the bedroom. Cam can’t promise Emma a rose garden, but in the meantime, he will enjoy their time together. But it never fails that whenever he turns around, there is a memory of his wife and her death. Can Cam get past the pain? Will Emma be the one who soothes his soul—and heart?

WILDFLOWER SEASON is a heartwarming tale that is a perfect beach read. You will cheer on Emma, Cam, Holly, and the others that have banded together to give Holly a beautiful wedding to the man she loves. Will it come off without too many bumps in the road? If you love reading about female friendships and a couple falling in love, then don’t miss WILDFLOWER SEASON.

Patti Fischer
Romance Reviews Today

3.5 stars

In a quick afternoon read, this was a nice escape. While the tale has been written many times, I do enjoy a trip to the south. Emma is in a situation and needs a change, and she decides to follow her dreams. Cam is the local handyman who helps her with her project. I enjoyed the progress their relationship took and how they supported each other to move on from the past. As with any small town, there are plenty of secondary characters, some familiar, and those we need to know better.

I look forward to more books in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin – Romance(US & Canada) for the advanced copy; this is my voluntary review