Just One Kiss: A heartwarming Christmas holiday romance

Freethy continues to expand her understanding of emotion and share it with the rest of the world. Her insight is a reminder that beauty can be found in every aspect of life. Hidden inside the ugliness that life throws our way, is the strength to rise above the fear, pain and despair. Just One Kiss is a tale of long ago heartache that paves a way for hope in the future. Jake and Hannah bring the heart full circle with an inspiring story of forgiveness and healing. Freethy leaves an imprint on the soul with every story she writes.

ARC for honest review with no compensation Just One Kiss is book 4 in the Whisper Lake series by Barbara Freethy and another awesome addition. This book will keep you reading and anticipating what will happen next...second chances to right a wrong, secrets, emotional, heart warming, looking for family, building family relationships, forgiveness, some tears, mysterious circumstances and opening their hearts to maybe finding love and so much more! What an amazing series!!

I received an ARC of Just One Kiss by Barbara Freethy as a member of her review team for an honest review. I can truly say that I absolutely loved Just One Kiss, it is an incredible second chance love story. It is the third book in the Whisper Lake series and a Christmas romance. Each book in the series gets better and better, but I think that Just One Kiss is my favorite story in the series so far. Barbara Freethy has once again shown that she is an amazing storyteller. I could not put it down. I loved every page. I really enjoy how the book is told from the perspective of the main characters. I love getting the insight and feelings from the different characters. Just One Kiss is a second chance at first love story and is filled with heartbreaking and heartwarming moments. I love the lighter moments where I find myself smiling and laughing out loud and the bittersweet moments that cause me to sigh, say aww to myself with tears filling my eyes. Just One Kiss is filled with such moments, and with so much emotion. It is filled with all those things that we have come to love and expect in a love story, especially the poignant and bittersweet moments that filled this page turner. Just One Kiss is the story of Jake McKenna, a sport enthusiast and owner of Whisper Lake’s Adventure Sports and Hannah Stark, an emergency room nurse. Hannah and Jake were high school sweethearts, but Jake stood Hannah up for prom and then cheated on her the same night, publicly humiliating Hannah. Both Hannah and Jake left Whisper Lake after graduation and have only recently returned home. Hannah has done everything to avoid Jake when in his nearby. Jake rescues Hannah on a snowy day when she gets a flat tire when checking on a problem at her family’s rental cabin. When Hannah gets to the cabin, she discovers a four-year-old boy, Brett on the couch. It turns out Brett is the son of Hannah’s sister, Kelly who left home fifteen years ago. As the spirit of Christmas embraces Hannah and Jake, Hannah lets her walls crumble and lets Jake back into her heart and love. I love how once again, Barbara Freethy incorporates the title of the book in to the story when Hannah tells Jake that it only took “just one kiss” for her to fall in love with him. I love that both Hannah and Jake share secrets with each other, especially Jake, whose secret cost him his relationship with Hannah. I love that they were both so vulnerable and that Hannah changed because of Jake’s rekindled love. I loved that Just One Kiss is a more than just a romance, there are dilemmas that both Hannah and Jake are facing that need to be resolved. I love that there were multiple storylines: trying to locate Kelly, Hannah’s relationship with her mother, Katherine a recovering alcoholic, Jake’s relationship with his father, Davis, but most importantly Hannah and Jake’s story. I love how all the storylines get so beautifully resolved because of the miracles of Christmas. I love all the descriptions of the Whisper Lake setting that Barbara Freethy detailed, it makes me want to visit. Just One Kiss is filled with the poignant and bittersweet moments in the story as well as the plot twists, that I have come to love and expect in Barbara Freethy's stories. I love the cast of characters in Just One Kiss and I am looking forward to reading the other books in the series. Who doesn’t love family and friends that always have each other’s backs? Reading Just One Kiss felt like a family reunion, because the reader was able to catch up with the other characters in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed Just One Kiss, who doesn’t love a second chance at first love story.