It was one of those nice easy flowing good reads that you didn't want to put down because there was enough drama to keep you interested. A book to pick up when you really don't know what you want to read, and find yourself pleasantly surprised! ( )

Three small town shop keepers try to keep their town positive with a "Have A Heart" campaign that asks everyone to do a random act of kindness each day. ( )

I love all of her books. This one focused more on a quilt shop. ( )

Reviewed by Jen
Book provided by the publisher for review
Originally posted at Romancing the Book

Angel Lane is a feel-good book that shouldn’t be missed and is a perfect read for the upcoming Christmas holiday season.

The town of Heart Lake is losing that treasured small-town feeling that many of its residents cherish. So friends, and shop owners, Sarah, Emma and Jamie take it into their own hands to make a difference. They start the movement “keep the heart in Heart Lake” with the hopes that good deeds would be paid forward by those who had received the gesture.

But what book is without conflict. As the ladies try to get their movement off the ground they have to deal with professional and personal problems. Sarah has an overzealous neighbor, an marriage losing its passion and is missing her grandchildren. Emma is alone and facing the closing of her quilt shop. And Jamie is recovering from an abusive marriage and tempted by the local widowed cop and his children.

I was very happy to have been asked to read and review this book. Once I got started I didn’t want to put it back. Sheila’s writing just drew me in and made me care about the characters and hope for a perfect ending. I highly recommend this book to those who love a good heartwarming tale. ( )

I finally received a copy of this book for Early Reviewers, and I admit I wasn't too eager to read it after seeing some of the other reviews, and my own personal history of hating ER books. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find [Angel Lane] was written fairly well, and was the first ER book in which I closed the book and felt it was what it promised to be.

One of the three main characters loves the movie, It's a Wonderful Life, and this book does its darnedest to follow the plotline and tone of that movie. Three women friends - Emily, Jamie and Sarah - live in the small town of Heart Lake and they all are own stores on Angel Lane. For various reasons, they bemoan the fact that their little town is growing and becoming less neighbourly. They decide to start a campaign, "Keep the Heart in Heart Lake" where they encourage the residents to do one kindness each day. Ups and downs occur in each of personal and professional lives of the women.

The book seems to be marketed as a romance, but honestly, the romances were secondary and not fully developed. Instead, [Angel Lane] is a feel-good, light-hearted book, just like It's a Wonderful Life is a feel-good movie. It's also very, very G-rated, to keep the movie analogy. The book cover is sweet and light, and makes it obvious what to expect from the pages. It doesn't pretend to be something its not, and I appreciated that. It's an easy, predictable, straight-forward book for women. The kind of book you give to give your grandmother who loves Hallmark movies. If you think I'm deriding this genre, I'm not. Even though this book didn't match my taste because it was fluff, it was competently written fluff, which is applaudable in any genre of books. ( )