Wishes & Stitches by Rachael Herron

Pub. Date: October 2011

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Format: Paperback , 400pp

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It has always been Naomi Fontaine’s dream to practice small-town medicine—an ambition that brought her to Cypress Hollow, the charming, tight-knit community her late friend, knitting guru Eliza Carpenter, loved so well. But no matter how hard she tries, Naomi can’t seem to fit in here. Then rugged Rig Keller moves in to take over half of Naomi’s medical practice, and instantly charms everyone in town . . . including Naomi. Rig saw what a broken relationship did to his brother, and has no interest whatsoever in getting serious. But the temptation to play doctor with his new partner is just too strong to resist. Any chance they might have of being truly knit together by love, however, depends entirely on what secrets they are willing to reveal . . . and on Rig’s willingness to risk his heart and Naomi’s desire to open hers completely.

I LOVED this book, no, I really loved this book.

To be perfectly honest, the very first thing that caught my attention was the cover because I love yarn and I love crocheting and knitting, so the cover itself was a like a huge red flag for me, just waving and saying read me read me.  And read it I did.

The minute this book arrived in the mail, I immediately set aside all my other reads and began this one.

It spoke my language, the language of a knitter, stitches and patterns and needles and the joys of casting on and seeing something emerge.

But it wasn't just the knitting anecdotes in the beginning of each chapter that kept me smiling, it was the story itself.

Naomi and Rig, the main characters and then all the others, Rig's family Jake who has recently lost his wife, his son Milo and their dad Frank....Naomi's family, her mother who she doesn't really get along with and her sister Anna who is kind of the black sheep of the family.

You get to really dig into the family history here and you start loving these characters from the get go, it's like following them on a daily journey from the minute they get up to the minute they head to bed.  You start loving their work, the small town they live in and it really gives you the feeling of small town living, the fact that everyone seems to know each other and how someone coming for the first time may feel like the outsider, the one cast aside and talked about.

Watching Naomi and Rig's love develop was so sweet but I think one of the characters I actually most loved and began to really feel for was Anna.  She shows up out of nowhere, pregnant and needing a place to stay, it's like she's the inconvenience in Naomi's life but soon they all begin to understand just how much they love each other and what family means.  I love the fact that we also get to enjoy Jake and Anna's friendship.

All in all this book ended way too soon for me, I wanted it to keep going and going and going and I'm dying to know what comes next for them all.  I only hope that the author graces us with another story follow up to Naomi and Rig and Jake and Anna and even Frank and Shirley.

Like I said, I couldn't put this book down and now that it's over I am left with a bitter sweet feeling, loving what I read but wanting more and I think for me that is the sign of a good author.

This was my first Rachael Herron book but by golly, I'm going to be hunting down her other ones and reading them too, not just because I love the author but the covers themselves are too pretty to pass up.

The book was provided by Harper Collins for review purposes.