Return to Evergreen,
the town where Christmas wishes come true…
When Lisa takes a last-minute Christmas trip to her
hometown of Evergreen, she finds that the historic general store has been
closed. Using her skills as a professional retail designer, Lisa decides to
keep local tradition alive and help the good people of Evergreen bring the
store back to life.
Lisa charms a local contractor named Kevin into working
with her, and the pair find themselves facing one surprise after another as
they restore the store to its former glory. When the staff at the Kringle
Kitchen temporarily accept the store’s beloved ‘Mailbox to Santa’ for
safekeeping, the townspeople find and rally around a mysterious 25-year-old
letter that never made it to the North Pole.
As old traditions are made new again, Lisa finds herself
falling for Kevin, the traditions, and the town of Evergreen.
This was a sweet, small-town Christmas story. Lisa is a
busy retail designer who is constantly on the go. She and her partner travel frequently
to stage stores for openings or special events. Her most recent project brought
to mind Evergreen, Vermont, a town she lived in as a young child. Her family
moved frequently, but Evergreen has always remained in her heart and mind. With
her parents away for the holidays, Lisa decides to visit Evergreen and see if
it lives up to her memories.
Her arrival in town brings even more memories flooding
back, including the day she and her parents moved away. I ached for Lisa and
the sadness of that memory. Her memory of Daisy's General Store and the comfort
that Daisy gave her that day still holds a special place in her heart. Lisa is
sad to see that the store has closed and that Daisy has passed away. The town's
mayor inherited the store and needs to sell it before the bank repossesses it,
but the store is in pretty sad shape. Excited by the idea of helping, Lisa
offers to fix the place up to make it more appealing to a buyer. To do so, she
will need the help of a local contractor, who turns out to be the same man she
met on the way into town.
Kevin has lived in Evergreen for most of his life, but it
was never the same after his mother died. His relationship with his father is
strained, and Kevin is contemplating taking a job in another state.
I loved the first meeting between Kevin and Lisa. It's
always fun when a guy is surprised by something a woman can do. I loved how
they connected right away, and the teasing banter as they worked on the truck
together. Underneath the banter, there were some sparks. Small towns being what
they are, it was fun to see them run into each other several times over the
next few hours, and how the sparks continued to flare. I loved seeing Lisa use
her enthusiasm to overcome Kevin's qualms about working on the store. For his
part, Kevin was reluctant since he couldn't see it getting done right in the
short time they had, but he found himself unable to resist Lisa's entreaties.
Over the next few days, as they worked on the store, they found they had a lot
in common. I enjoyed seeing their friendship develop and see the attraction
that simmered underneath it. Both resisted that attraction, though, as both
claimed to be uninterested in a relationship. I liked how their friendship
deepened into something more and wanted to shake them both as they continued to
fight it. Just when things looked most promising, misunderstandings pushed them
apart, until a Christmas miracle helped them see what was important.
I loved the underlying project of fixing up Daisy's
store. The project itself brought Kevin and Lisa together. However, they weren't
the only ones whose lives were affected by it. I loved the teamwork of the
townspeople as it seemed that everyone found a way to help in some fashion. When
Lisa discovered an old letter in the Santa Mailbox from Daisy's store, everyone
got involved in reviving some of the older traditions of the town's Christmas
celebration. The secondary characters brought added life and romance, making
the story even richer.
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