The First Love Cookie Club by Lori Wilde, third in the Twilight Texas series, was great and not marred by reading it out of order (I tend to do that with holiday books). I loved both the story and the characters, and i'll be reading more of the series. ( )

The First Love Cookie Club by Lori Wilde
Twilight, Texas series #3

Sarah Collier, a.k.a. Sadie Cool, reluctantly returns to the little town where she spent summers and holidays as a child. She had always loved her time in Twilight and had wonderful memories of time spent with her grandmother. Unfortunately, she left the town in shame nine years before when, as a besotted 15yo, she had crashed the wedding of a neighbor boy she had grown up with and was sure she was destined to marry. Her last memories were of her being sent home as the wedding guests laughed at her and the groom, Travis Walker, patting her on the shoulder with a sorry look on his face.

Sarah has lost her belief in destiny and true love and the power behind "kismet cookies", which her grandma taught her to make and when, on Christmas Eve, you slept with some under your pillow, would tell you in your dreams the identity of your soul mate (in her case, it was Travis).

Now, as the author of a beloved children's book about the magic of Christmas, she is asked to return to Twilight at the request of a dying little girl. How can she say no? She will have to swallow her pride and face the town again. It may be harder than she thought, however, when she realizes the little girl's father is none other than Travis Walker, now single after his wife abandoned the family when she couldn't handle their daughter's illness.

This was a nice story but I kept wishing it would have been better than it was. I think what got me the most was there were gaps in the story that made me go "huh?". There were instances where we were told about the connections between certain characters, esp. between Sarah and the little girl, Jazzy. We never really saw them spending any real time together but later on in the story, their closeness would be referred to in a few sentences about how they shared a special connection. The connection between the H/h also seemed rushed as we were once again told that they cared for each other but not really convinced that they had time together as adults to really get to know each other. It all seemed to be based on chemistry and/or the matchmaking done through the ladies in the cookie club and the magic of the kismet cookies. It made the possibility of a HEA seem a little contrived or unbelievable. ( )

Loved it! Read it in a weekend! ( )

I almost gave up on this book. The plot started off good but got heavy with thoughts and I skimmed. I skipped pages in the cookie baking section. I didn't like interaction between hero & heroine. Sarah, age 15, tried to stop Travis' wedding and nine years later she is a famous author.
( )

Normally I don't read romance novels. However, the author of this book is coming to town this weekend, and my local book club is a (nominal, because we meet at the site) host for a meet and greet for the author and publisher on Friday night. I thought I should read at least one of Lori Wilde's books before she gets here.

I was pleasantly surprised.

The First Love Cookie Club is the third book in the Twilight, Texas series. They don't need to be read in order. What makes this series interesting for me is that Twilight is loosely based on my town of Granbury, Texas. I wanted to read some of the books to see if I could recognize any of the people, places, or events described.

Lori Wilde did a good job of giving a feel for the town without necessarily being too specific about locations. We have lots of bed-and-breakfasts similar to the Merry Cherub, we do have a downtown courthouse square (just four blocks west from my home), and the lake is nearby as well (two blocks south). She specifically mentions Hood County (where we are located) and Highway 377 here; but otherwise, this could be any other small North Texas town on a lake. That is a plus in my opinion, as many readers can identify with the setting. Yet the descriptions of places still made me feel this was definitely set in Granbury.

The story is set in December, beginning with Twilight's annual Christmas festival with a Dickens theme. Well, Granbury has its annual Candlelight Tour of (mostly historic) Homes the first weekend of the month, many of the homes are Victorian, and some of the tour guides and carolers dress in Dickens style. There's a parade (albeit the weekend before) and lots of other holiday events that, once again, are typical of many small Texas towns.

Then there are the people. I swear the members of the First Love Cookie Club must be modeled on some of the well-known female personalities around town, past and present.

Our lead characters, the main couple, are Sarah Collier (aka Sadie Cool) one-hit-wonder author of a children's book, The Magic Christmas Cookie, and Travis Walker, local bad boy turned game warden and model single dad. Travis' daughter Jasmine (aka Jazzy) suffers from a life-threatening illness and writes a letter to her favorite author - Sadie - wanting to meet her before she dies.

Sarah doesn't know Jazzy is Travis' daughter, and Travis doesn't know Sadie is really Sarah - who, nine years ago at age 15, interrupted his Christmas Day wedding to Jazzy's mother to tell him the magic "kismet" cookies she and her grandmother bake every Christmas make her dream of her destiny - him.

Despite the corny set-up, I found Sarah and Travis to be well-developed characters. Sarah, the only child of two successful heart surgeons who have little time for her, now lives in New York City and is rather anti-social. Travis is an amazingly understanding heartthrob who reminds me a lot of MY husband. Travis has had a tough life too, losing both of his parents at a young age, and his shotgun wedding wife Crystal leaves him due to her immaturity and inability to deal with Jazzy's illness.

Both Sarah and Crystal have secrets that help explain some of their behavior - Sarah's is hinted at early on. Another character with a secret is Travis' aunt Raylene. Her subsequent behavior, however, comes totally out of the blue and isn't really explained in this book. Supposedly it's explained in a novella, but I felt it was disruptive here.

The only other gripe I have is the name of another minor character - the sheriff, Hondo Crouch. He was a real person (the man who invented Luckenbach, Texas, and a swim coach at various children's camps in Texas until his death in 1976 - I actually met him). For those of us old enough to remember him, having a character with his name is a bit disconcerting. I can understand Hondo as a first name for a Texas sheriff character, but I wish Lori Wilde had come up with a different last name.

All in all though, this was a fun, easy, Christmas romance. I'm off to read The Christmas Cookie Collection (four novellas about members of the First Love Cookie Club, including Raylene) next.

© Amanda Pape - 2014

[This book was borrowed from and returned to my local public library. A variation of this review also appears on Bookin' It.] ( )