Book Review: Smitten By Colleen Coble, Kristin Billerbeck, Denise Hunter, & Diann Hunt

Four friends devise a plan to turn Smitten, Vermont, into the country's premier romantic getaway-and each finds her own true love along the way.
With Smitten Lumber closing, residents wonder if their town can stay afloat. Then four friends and local business owners-Natalie, Julia, Shelby, and Reese--decide the town is worth saving. How will they do it? They'll turn Smitten into a honeymoon destination!
As Natalie, Julia, Shelby, and Reese work to save the town, each discovers romance in her own life. Meanwhile, the faith of a little child reminds the whole town what it means to have real faith in the God who is the always and forever Love.
Discover a novel written by four of Christian fiction's most popular romance novelists- friends in real life who've drawn an amazing story of four friends! Includes a Reading Group Guide as well as "Conversation over Coffee with the Authors"


The idea of a collaboration of 4 authors into a book containing 4 stories about 4 friends was a good one.  The story behind it of a town that is dying due to the economy and a plan to save it using it's name and beautiful setting to change it to a tourist location made for a great story.  The flow of one story to the next was very good.  I enjoyed reading Natalie and Reese's stories the most even though they were full of mistrust and misunderstanding of the men in their lives.  Julia's story quite honestly offended me a bit because of the light in which she sees and presents her mother as a housewife and I had a hard time getting past that.  Shelby's story bothered me a little too.  Shelby has a traumatic secret from her past that at one point she says she has asked for and received her Savior's forgiveness.  Later on she accepts no responsibility for her  actions and lays all the blame on her father. She does  forgive him for what the part he played, but still does not accept responsibility for her choices.  Overall even though I really wanted to like it, I found the book to be disappointing.

I received a complimentary ebook copy of Smitten from Thomas Nelson for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation.