Review: Fortune’s Holiday Surprise by Jennifer Wilck

Fortune’s Holiday Surprise by Jennifer Wilck
Series: The Fortunes of Texas: Fortune’s Secret Children, Book 5
Publisher: Harlequin
Genre: Contemporary Romance 

ISBN: 9781335996763
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Harlequin

He’d lost the holiday spirit…

Until she brought light back into his life.

Rancher Arlo Fortune is devastated when he loses his best friend in a tragic accident. The only thing that heals him is opening his heart to his friend’s adorable daughter, Aviva…and his friend’s grieving sister-in-law, the brand-new guardian to the orphaned child. Carrie Kaplan has one mission: to lavish her niece with love in a Jewish home like her sister always wanted. Her stop in Chatelaine is only temporary. Right? But as she teaches Aviva about the miracle of Hanukkah, holiday magic might just beckon from Arlo’s ranch around the bend…

Fortune’s Holiday Surprise is a story of finding love after loss. Carrie and Arlo’s worlds have both been turned upside down. Carrie lost her sister and brother-in-law and now finds herself in a small Texas town, guardian to her niece. Her brother-in-law was Arlo’s best friend and he’s grieving for the man and still coming to terms with the death of his father and the secrets that man may have left behind. It sounds like a lot – and it is – but author Jennifer Wilck balances the sadness with sweetness and light.

Carrie is learning to be a mother and to find her footing in a world without her sister. Randi wanted Carrie to teach her daughter, Aviva, their traditions and the Jewish representation in Fortune’s Holiday Surprise is wonderful. Carrie’s family are Sephardic Jews and it was a delight to see the Sephardic-specific Hanukkah traditions and treats featured here. Carrie and Aviva also help Arlo re-find the spirit of Christmas and the family traditions the Fortunes enjoy, which was charming.

Arlo and Carrie’s romance is sweet, low on drama, and just plain charming. Grief and love for Aviva bring them together but the friendship then love story that develops out of it is lovely. Fortune’s Holiday Surprise is a delightful holiday treat celebrating love, family, and traditions old and new.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: Matzah Ball Blues by Jennifer Wilck

Matzah Ball Blues by Jennifer Wilck
Series: Holidays, Heart and Chutzpah, Book 2
Publisher: Harlequin Special Edition
Genre: Contemporary Romance 

ISBN: 9781335594617
Release Date: March 26, 2024
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Harlequin

Why is this night different from all other nights?

For starters, Jared Leiman is home for the holidays. Because though he and Caroline Weiss were high school sweethearts, their post-college lives took them in different directions. Jared became a big-time entertainment lawyer in LA, while Caroline became a fitness instructor and stayed in town to care for her sick mother. And though her mother passed away three years ago, Caroline is finally free to go where she chooses. Meanwhile Jared, who inherited custody of his baby niece after a tragic accident, is suddenly a family man.

So now Caroline wants to leave her hometown in the dust, whereas Jared might just set up roots there. Because there is one thing that Browerville, New Jersey, offers the two of them that no other place does…each other!

Passover gives a second chance to former high school sweethearts in Matzah Ball Blues. In the year since his brother’s death, entertainment lawyer Jared Leiman hasn’t quite come to grips with the loss or being a father to his toddler niece. Taking a break from the high pressure and long hours of his job, he returns home to visit his parents for Passover and runs into – literally – his ex-girlfriend Caroline Weiss.

Jared and Caroline broke up when he went to college and she stayed home to care for her terminally ill mother. Jared broke her heart all those years ago, but he was a kid afraid of responsibility. Now he’s a man coming terms with loss and caring for others. I liked watching Jared grow over the course of the story, to take care with others and recognize that the life he’s living no longer suits him or his niece. Coming home brings it all back to him and his feelings toward Caroline come rushing back. Caroline is finally free of responsibility and she wants to live her life, to experience the things she put on hold. Jared should be the opposite of what she wants now, but old feelings come rushing back quickly. Their romance was both a slow burn and a surprisingly fast trip into feelings. I felt like them falling back in love was heavily built on a foundation we didn’t see and it didn’t always feel earned.

A secondary plot involving potential fraud at Caroline’s work adds some intrigue to the story but overall this was a slower paced book. I liked the romance well enough and I enjoyed seeing Caroline actively work to grow her career, but it felt like something was just missing from Matzah Ball Blues to keep me entertained. The conflict may have worked better in a shorter format where there wasn’t as much repetition.

One thing I really enjoy about the Holidays, Heart and Chutzpah series is author Jennifer Wilck’s excellent Jewish representation. Passover traditions in particular are highlighted in this book and Wilck does a great job of bringing them to life. While I was so-so on the story overall, Wilck’s care and attention to Jewish traditions engaged me and definitely made me want to read more of her work.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: Home for the Challah Days by Jennifer Wilck

Home for the Challah Days by Jennifer Wilck
Series: Holidays, Heart and Chutzpah, Book 1
Publisher: Harlequin Special Edition 

Genre: Contemporary Romance
ISBN: 9781335594228
Release Date: August 22, 2023
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Harlequin

Options:

Turning the bitterness of the past…

Into a sweet future!

When big-city advocate Sarah Abrams returns home for the High Holy Days, she’s got a lot on her mind—especially whether to marry her perfect-on-paper boyfriend. The last person she wants to encounter is Aaron Isaacson, her first love and the one who broke her heart. But after Aaron and Sarah join forces to fight an act of hate, it’s clear that their deep connection never abated. If only they could forgive one another for the past…in time for a sweet new start!

A new year brings a second chance at love for two former sweethearts in Home for the Challah Days. Jennifer Wilck brings excellent Jewish representation – religion, culture, and community – to her first Holidays, Heart and Chutzpah book.

Sarah left her hometown for DC and she’s rarely looked back. She has a successful job, a boyfriend with political ambitions, and she has turned herself into someone fit, successful, and independent. But in a Hallmark-level twist, she’s back home for the High Holy Days and returning to her small hometown brings her in contact with the boy she left behind. Aaron runs his family’s deli and even though he and Sarah broke up ten years ago, the feelings they had for each other never died. Of course, layering over that is a measure of bitterness for how things ended. Will Sarah choose her high-power life in DC and the perfect-on-paper boyfriend who wants to marry her? Or will she choose her hometown and the man she never quite got over?

I had mixed feelings about Home for the Challah Days. I liked Sarah and it was interesting to see her find herself and start to question how she let herself be molded into someone who didn’t entirely fit her. She had friends as well as Aaron that she disappeared from when she went to DC and I would have loved to see more of her reconnecting with them. Aaron, I struggled with. He’s hotheaded and angry and it bugged me how he kept comparing the Sarah he knew with the Sarah who is there now, as if one was better than the other rather than different. I never fully warmed up to Aaron and it made me hard to root for the romance. The love story leans heavily on the foundation built in the past and Wilck did a fair job of showing us said foundation. However, there was something missing for me – a romance, a spark, something of that nature – that made the romance fall a bit flat.

Home for the Challah Days is more than just the love story, however. It’s about community and Judaism and this is where Wilck’s writing shines. Aaron and Sarah are both really invested in their community and Wilck weaves this throughout the story perfectly. Even in a town as friendly as theirs, there’s still antisemitism and harsh realities of hatred to face. There’s also hope, allyship, friends, and family to counter the dark. It’s a dose of reality in an otherwise television special love story that grounds the story. So even though I had mixed feelings about Aaron and Sarah’s story, there was enough that I did really like about the book that I’m looking forward to the next Holidays, Heart and Chutzpah tale.



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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