The Wedding Shop by Rachel Hauck

The Wedding Shop by Rachel Hauck

I really enjoy reading Rachel’s books. She has her own distinctive voice in Christian fiction. I love how she includes the supernatural and how she tells a story. 

Let’s begin with the summary:

From New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Dress comes The Wedding Shop.

Two women separated by decades. Both set out to help others find their dreams when their own have crumbled.

It's the early 1930s, but Cora Scott is a career woman who inherited her great aunt's wedding shop in Heart’s Bend, Tennessee, where brides come from as far away as Birmingham to experience her famed bridal treatment. Meanwhile, Cora is counting down the days until her own true love returns from the river to make her his bride. But days turn into months and months to years. All the while, Birch Good continues to woo Cora and try to show her that while he is solid and dependable, he can sweep her off her feet.

More than eighty years later, former Air Force Captain Haley Morgan has returned home to Heart's Bend after finishing her commitment to military service. After the devastating death of her best friend, Tammy, and discovering the truth about the man she loved, Haley is searching for her place in life. 

When Haley decides to reopen the romantic but abandoned wedding shop where she and Tammy played and dreamed as children, she begins a journey of courage, mystery, and love.

As Cora’s and Haley's stories intertwine through time in the shadow of the beloved wedding shop, they both discover the power of their own dreams and the magic of everyday love. 

And now, my review:

I love how Rachel includes names of friends. The Saglimbeni brothers are in this one! (They serve on her worship team.) Those finds are fun for readers who know her. She also mentions a song by Laura Hackett Park, a fellow worship leader in the International House of Prayer movement. That was fun to see. I enjoy Laura's worship music.

I liked that we follow both Cora’s and Haley’s stories in this novel. Both have a romance brewing in their own time setting. I liked how the modern-day hero echoed the historical one. As always, Rachel’s prose is strong and so is her pacing.

One of the themes is faith—how to chase it down and rekindle it. Another theme is forgiveness and how we humans have a hard time accepting forgiveness, or love, when we feel ashamed or unlovable. 

I liked the references to the earlier books in this series, The Wedding Dress and The Wedding Chapel. I recommend reading them first so you’ll catch the references here. It’s not necessary that you read them ahead, but it would help. 

I loved how she threw in the spiritual side, even had a character pray in the Spirit. Loved that. And her sense of humor! I laughed aloud a couple of times.

This is another great novel from Rachel. High recommended!