Susan May Warren's Christiansen family series centers on six fictional adult siblings and their parents and friends in the small town of Deep Haven, Minnesota. The family runs an old-fashioned resort (cabins but no Internet).
Though all the family plus several side characters appear in each book, each focuses mainly on the story of one sibling.
When I Fall in Love is the third in the series, about second-oldest sister Grace. Grace loves cooking and wants to go to culinary school. But she's also a homebody who doesn't like to venture out of her comfort zone.
When she caters her oldest brother's wedding, the family thanks her by pitching in to surprise her with a three-week trip to a cooking school in Hawaii.
But Grace is not pleased. She's terrified.
Her sister's fiance, a hockey player on the professional team in Minneapolis, chose this particular school because his teammate, Max Sharp, is going there, too. He asks Max to keep an eye on Grace and help her out.
Max is less than thrilled. He goes on a cooking vacation each year somewhere where he's not known. He gives the bulk of his year to hockey. For that one month, he just wants to get away by himself and do something different.
Grace is not happy, either. She doesn't want Max to feel he has to baby-sit her.
But when they meet on the airplane, each not knowing who the other is at first---well, this is a romance novel, so you know they are going to be attracted.
The problem is, Max never planned to be attracted to anyone. He's the carrier for a disease that killed his father early and will probably take his life as well. He can never ask a woman to be part of his life knowing what she will have to go through, only to end up alone.
Grace tests his resolve, though.
In the subplot, Grace's friend and coworker, Raina, had helped cater Grace's brother's wedding. She's fairly new to town and has had a hard background. Her only remaining family is her aunt Liza in Deep Haven. Raina is not religious, but she attends church because her aunt requires her to.
Grace's brother, Owen, seeks Raina out after the wedding, making Raina feel special. But she doesn't know that Owen is in a downward spiral. He was a rising hockey star, only to be sidelined by a devastating injury. The fame and money had gone to his head, and the injury and loss of his career has sent him further to the wild side. He only uses Raina for a one-night stand.
Raina is bitter against all the Christiansen men. But when she gets to know Casper, the college-aged brother home for a semester, she finds he is much different from Owen.
I liked the themes of getting out of one's comfort zone and trusting God with the unknowns in life.
I didn't like so much the family pushing Grace out of her comfort zone. Older sister Eden, in particular, comes across really pushy and bossy here. I hadn't gotten that vibe from her in the book focusing on her (It Had to Be You). Not only does she propel Grace into the trip, she wants Grace to cater her wedding with Hawaiian food--as if cooking in Hawaii for three weeks makes Grace an expert. The fact that Eden didn't listen to Grace and kept insisting really bothered me.
Plus, the author has God answering Grace directly several times when she prays about something.
Also, though we're spared a bedroom scene with Owen's indiscretion, we're still shown more than I would have liked.
Even with those caveats, though, I found much to enjoy in this story. Just like in real life, we get ourselves in messes. But God offers healing and redemption.
I had listened to the audiobook, which unfortunately didn't contain any of the author's notes about what inspired this story. However, I did find a bit of background on Susan's site here.
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