Huckleberry Christmas by Jennifer Beckstrand
My Rating: ★★★★★
Now that Anna Helmuth has two successful matchmaking schemes under her belt, she’s ready to dip her fingers back into the pie and get her granddaughter, Beth, married off. Unfortunately, Beth is a widow hellbent on never entering another marriage again after the terrible marriage that she’s survived through. Having just escaped her abusive in-laws, she’s staying with her grandparents while she raises her son and gets her dressmaking business off the ground. What she doesn’t know is that Anna is determined to match her up with Tyler Yoder.
One of my friend’s recommended Jennifer Beckstrand’s books and this is the first series that I’ve picked up from her. I thoroughly enjoyed the previous two books in the series, but I was excited that Beckstrand mixed things up a bit and had Anna trying to get one of her granddaughters married off. The previous two books follow two different grandsons and the young ladies Anna thought would be perfect matches for them. This time around, she looked at Tyler Yoder and knew he’d be perfect for her granddaughter, Beth.
Tyler is a character we got to know well in the second book. I like him a lot, so it was great that we got to see him find love again in this installment. We also meet a new character, Beth, who has just moved back home. Her previous marriage wasn’t a happy one, so I felt awful about the things that she had gone through. I do think that she needed more time to heal, but you know Anna. She gets something in her mind and runs with it!
It was great following Beth and watching her rediscover herself, her joys, and figure out what she does want from life now that she has a choice again. Her character development is very realistic, and I felt very invested in her as a character from the start. I think that she might be one of my favorite characters so far, right behind Anna and Felty of course, and I’m looking forward to seeing her pop up in future books in this series.
There’s also a nice touch of Christmas throughout the book. This is a particularly hard Christmas season for me since I lost my grandpa this year and dealing with Christmas music, movies, and such has been difficult. This book was light enough that I felt like I was in a warm and caring embrace while I read. I might’ve gotten misty a few times from my own grief, but I think this is probably the only Christmas media I didn’t run away from this December. This series has a huge heart and I just want to hang out in this world because there’s a lot about both Anna and Felty that reminds me of my grandpa.
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