Love Story: A Novel (The Baxter Family) by Karen Kingsbury

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury comes a new book featuring everyone’s favorite family—the Baxters, which tells the story of how John and Elizabeth first fell in love.

From the day they met, John and Elizabeth were destined to fall in love. Their whirlwind romance started when they were young college students and lasted nearly thirty years—until Elizabeth died of cancer.

So when John Baxter is asked to relive his long-ago love story with Elizabeth for his grandson Cole’s heritage project, he’s not sure he can do it. The sadness might simply be too great. But he agrees and allows his heart and soul to go places they haven’t gone in decades. Back to the breathless first moments, but also to the secret heartbreak that brought John and Elizabeth together.

At the same time, Baxter family friend Cody Coleman is working through the breakup of his complicated relationship with Andi Ellison. He is determined to move on when a chance sighting changes his plans—and heart. Can Cody convince Andi to give their love another try, or is it time for them to say goodbye for good?

As school comes to an end, Cole presents his report on the love story between his grandparents John and Elizabeth Baxter. It is a tale that touches the hearts of the entire family, and one that causes Cole to better understand his own beginning.


Whether you’re meeting the Baxter family for the first time or finding them all over again, Love Story will stir your heart and remind you of the generational impact of love and the eternal bond of family.



My Thoughts On Love Story by Karen Kingsbury. You should know, I LOVE the Baxter series! I mean this way a fantastic series with great characters. I devoured the series in a very short amount of time. When I found out Kingsbury was writing a story, the never fully told story of John and Elizabeth you can bet I was excited.


So how did the book hold up against the series from years ago? Well for me it couldn't reach five star potential. I loved getting a peek into John and Elizabeth's past and learning about where they got their amazing faith from. This was a great part of their story. But it wasn't the whole book. The other part of the book was based on Cody Coleman and the Flanigan storyline. If I was being honest the Flanigan stories...I just didn't connect with them. I stopped reading the series once it broke off. I wasn't invested in Cody. Now someone who had read the Flanigan books will love to get caught up with Cody.

Overall, I gave the book four stars. Reading Love Story reminded me how much I missed this family. I would have given a five star, but I felt the story of John and Elizabeth could have been more of the book. Loved it overall.




































As of December 1, 2009, According to The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), product reviewers on blogs must disclose whether they received products for free or received payment for their review. The books I review on this site (A NOVEL REVIEW) are sent to me by publishers, authors or downloaded from Netgalley. This is a very common practice. I never take payments for these reviews and all the reviews on this site are my own thoughts and feelings and are not influenced.

The Sunshine Sisters by Jane Green

The New York Times bestselling author of Falling presents a warm, wise, and wonderfully vivid novel about a mother who asks her three estranged daughters to come home to help her end her life.

Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters. 

As soon as possible, tomboy Nell fled her mother's overbearing presence to work on a farm and find her own way in the world as a single mother. The target of her mother s criticism, Meredith never felt good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Her life took her to London and into the arms of a man whom she may not even love. And Lizzy, the youngest, more like Ronni than any of them, seemed to have it easy, using her drive and ambition to build a culinary career to rival her mother's fame, while her marriage crumbled around her. 


But now the Sunshine Girls are together again, called home by Ronni, who has learned that she has a serious disease and needs her daughters to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy are all going through crises of their own, their mother's illness draws them together to confront old jealousies and secret fears and they discover that blood might be thicker than water after all.

My thoughts...

I always enjoy reading Jane Green books, so I was excited to start my summer reading off with her newest novel The Sunshine Sisters. An easy read to sit back and just enjoy reading on the beach or in your backyard watching the kids play on the swing set. The book has a nice quick flow to it, which is always great for a summer read.

You get to know Ronni and her three daughters with individual chapters off and on through their life before they all come together again. I wasn't a fan of Ronni, but she was portrayed how I would view many Hollywood type moms.Her character felt true. I never felt bad for her even though she was suffering with a serious disease. I did however feel bad for her daughters.

With the chapters written from the past to present for each daughter you see what drove their different personalities. I would say I was a bit disappointed in the relationship between Nell and Meredith. It felt like they might have been closer since most of their childhood was them vs Ronni. I have a sister and we are pretty close in age and we are very different, yet remain close. It seemed a little odd that they weren't even a little close as adults.

I enjoyed  the chapters of getting caught up with the girls as adults the most. I could easily see where and how they got where they did. I was rooting for all of them to find happiness and to deal with the hurts of the mother. I would say I most related to Nell. We are both oldest children and her feelings about her mother felt similar to some of the thoughts and feelings I went through when I lost my dad a few years back.

I can't say I loved The Sunshine Girls, but I enjoyed it well enough and it was a pretty quick read. There was a certain amount of predictability to the story, so I would say I had a little higher hopes. 

Follow Jane Green

Twitter | Website

Buy your copy:

Amazon|Barnes & Noble

As of December 1, 2009, According to The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), product reviewers on blogs must disclose whether they received products for free or received payment for their review. The books I review on this site (A NOVEL REVIEW) are sent to me by publishers, authors or downloaded from Netgalley. This is a very common practice. I never take payments for these reviews and all the reviews on this site are my own thoughts and feelings and are not influenced.