The Wishing Season by Denise Hunter

In this competition, it’s not just the house on the line, it’s their hearts.

        She has the touch when it comes to food, but PJ McKinley’s dream of opening her own restaurant is one building short of reality. So when a Chapel Springs resident offers her beloved ancestral home as prize to the applicant with the best plan for the house, PJ believes she was meant to win.

        Contractor Cole Evans is confident, professional, and swoon-worthy—but this former foster kid knows his life could have turned out very differently. When Cole discovers the contest, he believes his home for foster kids in transition has found its saving grace. All he has to do is convince the owner that a not-for-profit enterprise will be good for the community.

        When the eccentric philanthropist weighs the proposals, she proposes an outlandish tie-breaker: PJ and Cole will share the house for a year to see which idea works best. Now, with Cole and the foster kids upstairs and PJ and the restaurant below, day-to-day life has turned into an out-and-out rivalry—with some seriously flirtatious hallway encounters on the side. But could their magnetic attraction cost them everything they’ve ever wanted? 

        PJ McKinley has always felt like she has something to prove, especially to her family. So when she has the opportunity to start her own restaurant right out of culinary school—as long as she wins the rights to her neighbor’s ancestral home—she jumps at the chance. There’s only one problem. She has to earn it while sharing it with a man she can barely go five minutes without arguing with.

        Cole Evans has wanted to open a home for in transition foster kids for a long time. Now that he has his chance, he hates that he has to share the house with PJ. Her restaurant is taking up valuable rooms that he could use to help more kids. And her bubbly personality has an uncanny way of getting under his skin, no matter how hard he tries to keep her at bay.

        With tensions mounting as they continually get closer to the day when someone will win the house, will Cole and PJ learn to work together or will they both lose everything they’ve always dreamed of?

        The Wishing Season was another wonderful book in Denise Hunter’s Chapel Springs Romance series that I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved the way the PJ and Cole interacted and the ways they dealt—or didn’t—with their problems. While there were many touching, serious moments that I enjoyed, I think most of my favorite ones were the sillier scenes that made me laugh. Anyway, I give The Wishing Season all five bookmarks for its relatability, for PJ’s need to prove herself and Cole’s battle with guilt. I would highly recommend it, and Married Til Monday, which comes out in less than three weeks!

        Happy reading!

Pick up a copy of any of the four books here.

All credit for the above italicized synopsis goes to Denise Hunter and her publishers.