Super fun read! I loved that the heroine liked to garden. Loved the wedding! Really enjoyed it! Highly recommend!

A May Bride is a quick, generally enjoyable story, best suited for a day relaxing at the beach or lazy Sunday at home. The main character, Ellie's attempt to live life outside of her mother's man-hating influence puts her smack dab in the path of Graham, who seems like a genuinely nice guy who's had his eye on the cute lady from the local coffee shop. Their courtship itself is endearing and sweet. This is a fairly tame romance, so the focus is on the development of their connection and not on the bedroom. To that end, there isn’t really passion, but a genuine care and respect that blossoms.

The core of the conflict lies with Ellie’s relationship with her family and the myriad ways it interferes with her autonomy and focus on her relationship.

It's rare that I don't enjoy a protagonist, but that was the case for Ellie. She spends an overwhelming portion of the book prioritizing her family over her relationship and, frankly, herself. While this wouldn't be abnormal in general, the extent of it, how much it overpowers her life, and how she allows it to affect Graham honestly made me not like her. She came across as weak-willed and hypocritical.

For his part, Graham seemed to be patient to a fault with Ellie, but was still human. There were definitely times where he was upset and proved to be a more mature person in how he responded, or what he found issue with. He was an appropriate foil for Ellie, even if I didn't always think she was a good match for him based on her words and actions.

It's important to note that this book is a Christian romance, so I expected faith, religion, and church to factor prominently. The main characters' faith wasn't so much a factor outside of mentioning that they attended different churches. Ellie's mother, however, has very traditional (and hypocritical) ideals about relationships, purity, and the like. There were other characters who provided a more balanced and reasonable approach to their Christian values and how it led them to live their lives. To that end, the book did provide some exploration of traditional versus more modern takes on what it means to live a Christian life.

I have mixed feelings about this book, and it’s definitely not going to land in my favorites for this series. Overall, I found myself interested enough to finish this story, but I can't say that I loved it. Ellie's character flaws really made it difficult for me to get into this story and feel invested in the characters' on a whole. I wouldn't down vote this book, because I think it may work for some, but it missed the mark for me.

Couldn’t really get into this one. The characters were rather unlikeable and the romance moved at too fast a pace. But if you’re just looking for a quick little romance this may be up your alley!

If you are looking for a quick read and a sweet romance these novellas are for you. Each one in the Year of Weddings takes a couple hours to read. They are fun and light.

A christian fiction novella length story that is a part of a collection. A collection of monthly bride books was published in 2014 and I was intrigued to read a few of them - this was one.

This one centers around Ellie Martin who is a new real estate agent in Atlanta, GA and comes from an interesting family that takes over her thoughts often. You can tell from early on in the book that her family has made an impact on her and maybe not the most positive impact. In walks Gray Whitby who will try to sweep her off her feet and in any romance book nothing can go just right.

I think the big problems I had with this one was the author was trying to go from 0 to 60 in 120 pages and it just felt too much in such a short space, so it made feel too much like a roller coaster. She was trying to jam a full romance novel into half the time and romance novels need the pages for the couples to have the ups and downs of a relationship, so this felt rushed and just off putting.

I would read this author again, just may prefer to try a full length novel next time.

Sorry, could not get to reading this book on time - thank you for the opportunity to review!