Debbie Macomber's Back on Blossom Street, the third book in her Blossom Street series, is the perfect book for people who like happy endings.
While the characters certainly go through their crises as the book progresses, everything turns out pretty well in the end, thank you very much.
Still, this is a lovely book about the power of love and the relationships that can be built on the basis of knitting.
Friends Old and New
Back on Blossom Street features many characters that readers of Macomber's other two Blossom Street books will recognize:
- Lydia Goetz, who owns the shop A Good Yarn and tries to hold her family together after her niece is carjacked and her sister seems a little too bent on revenge.
- Alix Townsend, the rough-around-the-edges baker who is set to marry pastor Jordan Turner, but who is having huge second thoughts about the fancy wedding her mother-in-law is planning.
But there are also new characters to meet and enjoy, such as Jordan's grandmother, Sarah, and:
- Susannah Nelson, who recently opened a flower shop next to A Good Yarn.
- Collette Blake, a young widow who recently quit her job, moved into the apartment over the yarn shop and started working at the flower shop. She quit her old job after an affair with her boss, which no one else knows why she so desperately needed to break off from.
Class is in Session
The yarn shop scenes revolve around a new knitting class that Lydia has cooked up: making a prayer shawl. (You can check out patterns used by the characters in the book in Leisure Arts' Knit Along pamphlet.)
Alix joins the class even though she doesn't need to be taught anything, because she thinks knitting will help relieve some of the stress of her wedding.
Collette and Susannah join even though neither of them have knit before. Eventually Alix and Collette become friends, working out together and sharing some of their secrets.
In the meantime, Collette's old boss keeps coming around, and the sparks fly even as Collette tries to keep her distance.
All's Well that Ends Well
While there are a few moments of tension in this story, it's nothing that feels insurmountable, which turns out to be the case.
Even though the book deals with some difficult subjects you never get the feeling that anything truly bad is going to happen to these characters--and for the most part you'd be right.
That makes this book the kind of light reading that is perfect for long summer days.
For the knitters reading this book, each of Lydia's chapters (the chapters are divided into the main characters' points of view) begins with a quote about knitting. Some of these are non sequiturs (such as one having to do with making dog sweaters) but most will warm the hearts of knitters, just as this story will bring a smile to anyone--knitter or not--who likes a good yarn with a happy ending.
