I loved her book The Family Journal! So when I seen her newest The Hope Chest....
I had to get it! Brown is an amazing romance writer! Love her books!
Excited to read this one!
Review to come!

We often think of coming of age as a teenage thing. Sometimes it takes a while to get to that point and those turning points in life happen when we are further along in age. After fumbling through life 3 cousins unite in a wonderful bonding story of finding out who they are as people, learning to trust and know that family will be there to pick you up when you fall. A beautiful story. ( )

The Hope Chest is the story of three adult cousins who are reunited when they must live together and accomplish a task in order to claim their inheritance from their grandmother. The task is to finish a quilt the grandmother had started for them. Working side by side on the quilt for several weeks, all three learned a lot about each other – and themselves.
What especially drew me to the book was the ongoing theme that we do not need a fancy job based on a fancy education to be happy. Two of the three cousins had college educations and good jobs they were not happy in. The third was homeless. This is a great story of how they each came to terms with their own circumstances – and thrived.
This book is uplifting – a great book to read after all the WWII fiction I have been reading lately! I won this book through the GoodReads Giveaway program. ( )

When their grandmother dies, three estranged cousins are called back to Blossom, Texas to learn about the will. Nessa, Flynn, and April had all spent time with her over the years but their lives had gone in totally different directions and the only connection was their grandmother. They are told that they must complete a quilt that their grandmother was working on when she died. As they work on the quilt together, they begin to talk about their pasts and reveal secrets of their lives.

Nessa - is the oldest of the three grandchildren. She is a teacher and the daughter of strict parents who want her to follow their directions on how to live her life. She has been thinking about giving up her job for awhile and while she works on the quilt, her plans for the future begin to come clear. The weeks that she spent at her grandmother's every summer were a welcome relief from her life with her over-zealous religious parents.

Flynn - has always been a playboy. His father had been married numerous times and he seemed to be following in his footsteps with the number of women that he had been involved with over the years. His two cousins had no idea how rough his life was when he went back to his father's house every year to start school.

April - is the youngest cousin. She was raised by her grandmother and spent more time with her than the other two. She's made a lot of mistakes in her life and now has no money, no job and is living in her car. She hopes to use her time in Blossom to start to turn her life around.

All three of the cousins bring their past baggage to the quilting shed at their grandmother's. Can they change their patchwork pasts and learn to love and respect each other again?

I'm not sure why but Carolyn Brown has not been on my radar. After reading The Hope Chest, I plan to change that and read some of her earlier books. This was a well written book with very believable characters and a great plot that showed their personal growth throughout the book. It was a comforting easy read that was hard to put down. ( )

Good story about family, love, and forgiveness. Nessa, Flynn, and April are cousins born just a few months apart. Though they spent two weeks together every summer at their grandmother Lucy's house as kids, they haven't seen each other in many years. Then an inheritance brings them all back to Blossom, Texas. Nanny Lucy left her home to the three cousins with some unusual conditions. The house can never be sold, to claim their inheritance, they must hand-stitch the quilt that she left for them, and her hope chest will go to the first cousin who marries. All three face decisions about the directions of their lives.

Nessa remembers Nanny Lucy's house and her time there as a place of refuge. Her father is a super-strict preacher, and her mother follows right along. Nessa saw their hypocrisy early in life and continues to rebel. She teaches kindergarten but isn't all that happy in her work. A series of failed relationships make her question her judgment. A summer at Nanny Lucy's provides a chance to consider a change.

Flynn, the only child of divorced parents, remembers summer fun with his cousins until the year he turned fifteen. His mother died in a car crash on the way to pick him up. Though he begged to stay with her, Nanny Lucy sent him to live with his father. Matthew is an unrepentant womanizer who had no interest in being a father to his son, leaving Flynn mostly on his own. Flynn grew up to follow in his father's footsteps but recently decided to change his ways. Spending the summer at Nanny Lucy's is his chance to start anew.

April is the daughter of Lucy's youngest child, Rachel. Rachel died four days after April's birth, leaving April to be raised by Nanny Lucy. April couldn't wait to get away after she graduated, but her life since then has been one disappointment after another. After her latest disastrous relationship, April is broke and homeless, leaving Nanny Lucy's her only option. There she hopes to find a new start.

Nessa, Flynn, and April settle into the house and work out schedules and responsibilities. There's a bit of snark and sarcasm in those first interactions until the memories of the good times they shared started to kick in. As they talk about those summer visits, each one discovers that their memories of Nanny Lucy don't necessarily match those of the others. As they look at those childhood memories through adult eyes, a clearer picture of their grandmother emerges. The things they learn about Lucy also help them understand their parents and themselves. I liked seeing them open up about their own lives and challenges and accept that they are works in progress. Each of the three cousins came to Blossom looking for a new start, and I enjoyed seeing how each of them found their way. Above all, they found the home and family each of them craved.

It wouldn't be a Carolyn Brown book without a little bit of romance. In this case, Nanny Lucy's net door neighbor, Jackson, was charged with keeping the hope chest until they met the will's conditions. Jackson left a successful law career five years earlier and went to work with his uncle making furniture. Having been at the same place as Flynn, April, and Nessa, Jackson is uniquely positioned to help all of them in their quests. I loved watching him become friends with all three cousins, but there was a little something extra in his interactions with Nessa. Smitten early on, Jackson knew what he wanted and had the patience to wait for it. Having been cheated on before, Nessa was in no hurry to start another relationship. I liked seeing their friendship grow into more and Nessa learn to trust Jackson. There was a minor hiccup in their growing relationship, but both acted like adults and talked it out. The epilogue caught up with everyone a year later.

#netgalley ( )