Just One Kiss: A heartwarming Christmas holiday romance

I received an ARC of Just One Kiss by Barbara Freethy as a member of her review team for an honest review. I can truly say that I absolutely loved Just One Kiss, it is an incredible second chance love story. It is the third book in the Whisper Lake series and a Christmas romance. Each book in the series gets better and better, but I think that Just One Kiss is my favorite story in the series so far. Barbara Freethy has once again shown that she is an amazing storyteller. I could not put it down. I loved every page. I really enjoy how the book is told from the perspective of the main characters. I love getting the insight and feelings from the different characters. Just One Kiss is a second chance at first love story and is filled with heartbreaking and heartwarming moments. I love the lighter moments where I find myself smiling and laughing out loud and the bittersweet moments that cause me to sigh, say aww to myself with tears filling my eyes. Just One Kiss is filled with such moments, and with so much emotion. It is filled with all those things that we have come to love and expect in a love story, especially the poignant and bittersweet moments that filled this page turner. Just One Kiss is the story of Jake McKenna, a sport enthusiast and owner of Whisper Lake’s Adventure Sports and Hannah Stark, an emergency room nurse. Hannah and Jake were high school sweethearts, but Jake stood Hannah up for prom and then cheated on her the same night, publicly humiliating Hannah. Both Hannah and Jake left Whisper Lake after graduation and have only recently returned home. Hannah has done everything to avoid Jake when in his nearby. Jake rescues Hannah on a snowy day when she gets a flat tire when checking on a problem at her family’s rental cabin. When Hannah gets to the cabin, she discovers a four-year-old boy, Brett on the couch. It turns out Brett is the son of Hannah’s sister, Kelly who left home fifteen years ago. As the spirit of Christmas embraces Hannah and Jake, Hannah lets her walls crumble and lets Jake back into her heart and love. I love how once again, Barbara Freethy incorporates the title of the book in to the story when Hannah tells Jake that it only took “just one kiss” for her to fall in love with him. I love that both Hannah and Jake share secrets with each other, especially Jake, whose secret cost him his relationship with Hannah. I love that they were both so vulnerable and that Hannah changed because of Jake’s rekindled love. I loved that Just One Kiss is a more than just a romance, there are dilemmas that both Hannah and Jake are facing that need to be resolved. I love that there were multiple storylines: trying to locate Kelly, Hannah’s relationship with her mother, Katherine a recovering alcoholic, Jake’s relationship with his father, Davis, but most importantly Hannah and Jake’s story. I love how all the storylines get so beautifully resolved because of the miracles of Christmas. I love all the descriptions of the Whisper Lake setting that Barbara Freethy detailed, it makes me want to visit. Just One Kiss is filled with the poignant and bittersweet moments in the story as well as the plot twists, that I have come to love and expect in Barbara Freethy's stories. I love the cast of characters in Just One Kiss and I am looking forward to reading the other books in the series. Who doesn’t love family and friends that always have each other’s backs? Reading Just One Kiss felt like a family reunion, because the reader was able to catch up with the other characters in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed Just One Kiss, who doesn’t love a second chance at first love story.

Whisper.Lake.....JUST ONE KISS..#4...Barbara..Freethy Hannah an ER nurse, dead tired, and being five days before Christmas in Whisper Lake, full of visitors. Since thirteen has kept the family together, forgiving them for their demands, especially her mother. Eight hours of work and she had to check on a furnace in one of the rental cabins, for her. A heavy snow, a flat tire, and Jake came by. Finding a young boy alone in the cabin, mother leaving a note. Hannah didn't want help, but needed Jake to take them back to town. Jake, a first crush and first humiliation to forgive him yet for those memories, seemed impossible. A child Brett, a trusting smile and the innocence of one that is young, before the hurts of people. Excepting his mother left him alone, isolated in a cabin out from town. For for what reason a note saying no calls to police. A story that tugs on your heart, of the drama in families and as in this story Hannah always stepping in to help and has no family of her own. A story of forgiveness and healing, enjoyable and well done. The 4th in this good series full of memories in Whisper Lake. Given ARC for my voluntary review and my honest opinion

Being a romantic at heart makes me a sucker for a great second chance romance, add in Christmas time as the background and I’m all in. I didn’t want to put this book down. I was invested and needed to know what was happening. This heartwarming, sweet and tender story tugged at my heart strings and maybe even had me tearing up. Hannah and Jake were best friends since middle school and then high school sweethearts for a brief time, until Jake ruined it all and broke Hannah’s heart. Fast forward 12 years.... Hannah does everything in her power to avoid Jake and has absolutely no desire to forgive him, until a blown tire brings them together and they end up thrown together due to the discovery of a sweet, innocent 4-year-old boy and mysterious circumstances. While impatiently waiting for the mystery to be unraveled, they form a bond again (that never died). Jake seems to be a carefree, adventure seeking man but he has been running from a major secret for 12 years. Will he finally confront it so that he gets the girl? Can Hannah let go of her hate towards him and take another chance if it means her happiness? I adored this book and love the entire series. This is a standalone, but I recommend reading the series for its wonderful characters and beautiful setting. I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Readers Copy of this book.