The First Love Cookie Club audiobook

I'm enjoying the books from this series. They all contain a Christmas theme snuck in it. Twilight is a small quaint town so everybody knows each other. The Sweetheart Tree brings first loves together. A little mystery is always involved as well as romance, humor, and a little sex.

I really enjoyed this book. I felt like the problems and emotions were ones that were realistic. While both Travis and Sarah have issues, none of them seem to overwhelm the story. It starts with Sarah as an awkward teenager discovering that the guy she's been dreaming of is about to marry someone else. After humiliating herself by trying to stop the wedding she swears she will never risk her heart again. Fast forward nine years, and Sarah has become a successful children's author. When she receives a letter from a sick fan, she reluctantly returns to Twilight, only to discover that the little girl is Travis's daughter.I had a little trouble connecting with Sarah at first. She was so resistant about going to Twilight that she came across as a bit selfish. Even once she was there she seemed rather standoffish. Some could be blamed on her memories of that day, but other things about her life are slowly revealed and begin to explain her problem. Her initial meeting with Travis shows her that she has never really forgotten those feelings for him. She also knows that she won't stay in Twilight so there's no sense in starting anything with him, tempting though it may be. She doesn't count on the ladies of the cookie club doing their best to push them together, or that Travis seems equally drawn to her. As the week goes on Travis and Jazzy start to break down the walls that Sarah has built up to keep people out. She starts to connect with them and others, but still doesn't see herself as able to have that happy ending.Travis was a wonderful hero. From his kind attitude toward Sarah on his wedding day to the amazing father he is today he is awesome. He may have made a mistake by getting his girlfriend pregnant when he was twenty, but he was determined to do the honorable thing and take care of them both. He was an involved father from the beginning, and even more so when Jazzy got so sick. He took on the role of both parents when his wife left them, making Jazzy the center of his world. When Sarah came back to Twilight he was surprised by the strength of his attraction to her. He would be very happy to see where it goes, but he has some of his own baggage to overcome. Between watching his dad fall apart after his mom's death and then his disastrous marriage, Travis resists the idea of soulmates, fearing that his life would fall apart too if he were to lose someone he cared about that much. I really liked the way that he saw Sarah's pain and fears and gave her the space she needed to process what they were beginning to feel for each other.Even as they began to acknowledge their feelings for each other, there were still some obstacles to overcome. Jazzy's mother comes back to town, causing Sarah to question her own place in their lives. Sarah has some professional problems that also interfere with her decision making process. Then there is a health crisis with Jazzy that brings a whole host of feelings to the surface, causing both Sarah and Travis to take a good look at what they really want from life.The town itself is another character in the book. I enjoyed seeing the various Christmas traditions and how they worked with what Travis and Sarah were going through. The people had the usual small town nosiness and tendency to interfere, but mostly in a positive manner. There was a secondary storyline that was left hanging, but it is addressed in a later series of novellas.

There is a legend among the town of Twilight, Texas, that if you sleep with kismet cookies and dream of your true love, then he will be your future. Sarah Collier, as a teenager, had known that Travis was her one true love. But when she hears that he is to married, she tries to stop the wedding, only to be rejected, now all grown up, an adult, a scrooge, but yet a author for children's books, and is well known among children everywhere. She then receives a letter, from a sick girl, who begs to meet her, that is her Christmas wish, thinking she is going to die. So Sarah reluctantly agrees, to stay in her hometown, but what she is surprised to discover is the girl's father is none other than Travis Walker himself. Now she knows that she is in trouble, because he is her weakness. For years Sarah has prided herself on moving on from that embarrassing moment as a teenager, and now doesn't believe in fated love...but a building trust like her parents. But as her hearts gets wrapped up in Jazzy's dilemma, with her suffering from what appears to be a fatal illness with no cure in sight. Will Sarah and Travis find their happy ending?There is so much emotion that is riding on this story. I knew going into it, it would be a winner, since every book I have read from this author has been phenomenal and I have come to really admire this author's talent in weaving a sweet and poignant romance...and lets just say that she has done it again...only this story has one more positive note...it has a holiday kick to it, with the heroine being the scrooge of the story. Now that usually doesn't happen too often, so it was fun seeing the building up of Sarah as one of the main characters. Now in the beginning of the story, it starts us off with that teenage embarrassing moment, which I am sure that we can all relate to, however my heart just went out to Sarah. Then we skip ahead to the present, and we see Sarah all grown up, hates Christmas, and almost refuses to return to twilight until she reads Jazzy's letter...which just about broke my heart. From the first moment we see this little girl enter the story, you just cave. You just want Jasmine to get a happy ending, and find a way to beat this illness.The romance section of the story was pretty emotionally driven for the most part. It doesn't really kick in for a while, it more of a dancing around each other for a while. Sarah has a lot of issues and most of them revolving around Travis, and boy does she make him work for it, and he so deserve it!! LOL I loved Travis, I really did, but there was some moments, where I wanted to just shake him and throw him out...but in a very loving way. Then there were others, where I just wanted to give him a hug, he is such a great father, and I loved the way his character was with his daughter, it was so precious and it just made me want to cry. I enjoyed seeing Travis and Sarah really come together, and work on past issues together, and it isn't easy for either one of them, but they definitely persevere, and it was such fun seeing these two work out all the kinks.I could tell from the beginning, that this story wouldn't be a easy to relax into one. It would definitely be the type to put my emotions through the ringer, pull out your tissues ladies, and a pom pom and be ready to cheer this couple on, cry in those tender and heart wrenching moments, and just dance when something good happens to this darling little family. A story that is guaranteed to magically weave its way into your heart, with the magic of the season to warm you on a cold winter's night!! SPECTACULAR!!

I just finished a terrific Christmas romance: Lori Wilde's The First Love Cookie Club. Back when the heroine was a pudgy teen, she humiliated herself by interrupting Travis Walker's wedding--but now she's a famous author & back in Texas...I loved it! It's a little sad, makes you laugh, perfect to curl up with & enjoy the weekend.

This is an absolutely delicious read! Starting from the first page you get the sense that the author really loves and enjoys food (desserts in particularly) and she writes about it poetically. You can almost smell the cookies and cakes when she's describing them. Not only that, but she describes Twilight, Texas beautifully as well. It's a made up town (as far as I know), but this books makes you want to go and have a visit any time of the year, and it's not just because the people seem friendly either. Lori Wilde paints an amazing picture where the trees are full and green, the lawns are probably lush, and the food is terrific.But there's gotta be some flaws, right? Mine came in the form of the main character, Sarah Collier. First of all, she's this "big city slicker", fashion forward female and it seems as if she's gone back to Twilight with only one pair of shoes--black knee high stiletto boots. Now, I'm from South Carolina, but a woman is a woman and if I'm going somewhere for more than a day, I'm taking more than one pair of shoes--period! Not only that, but she spent DAYS there and I know must ladies would take 3 pairs MINIMUM if they're going somewhere for a week. And that's just us being practical. I'm not a real fussy or high maintenance person either, but every woman is prepared for any and every situation when it comes to their footwear and she may not have been a resident of Twilight growing up, but she'd stayed there enough times and long enough to learn that she should've taken a pair of Uggs. Has Lori Wilde never heard of a pair of friggin' Ugg boots?! Sarah getting off the plane in a pair of stilettos, fine; but Sarah running around a town, reading to children, and going to sit over at some middle aged women's houses to sit around and drink eggnog in stilettos--not only that, but the SAME pair--yeah, she'd look pretty stupid to me. I don't care where you're from, most women know that life isn't an ongoing episode of Sex and the City and you're not going to want to be in heels constantly. Cause no matter how they look, they hurt like hell, and going back to Twilight I would think that apart of her would feel comfortable enough to want to chill where her wardrobe was concerned at least one or two days during her stay (despite the fiasco that happened all those years ago). That was just ONE issue I had with Ms. Collier.The second issue was the fact that she was just absolutely too dainty acting as if she'd never been there before. All those times she'd spent there as a little girl i would've thought she would know the virtues of getting her hands dirty and it wouldn't have been that big of a deal. It's not like she spent 2 weeks out of every year with her grandmother in Twilight, she spent the summer months AND the two weeks for the holiday vacation in December. I'm telling you right now, when you spend that much time down south in a small town where everybody knows you and you've been taught how to fish and do this and that, you're not going to be all uptight like she was upon her return. She just seemed like an idiot wanting to wear her stilettos (*eye roll*) while picking out a tree in all that soft mushy soil and also wanting to wear a pair of thin cute little gloves while hauling a tree and resisting putting on the worker gloves claiming they were "icky" or something like it. I kinda wanted to slap her. First of all, you damage the heels of your stilettos when they sink down in soil like that and since they seem to be her favorite and/or only pair of shoes, I would've thought that would cross her thick skull at least once. Secondly, trying to haul a tree with cutesy little gloves on would've probably ripped them or at the very least left them with scratch marks that would render them unattractive. If this was her first time down south, or if she hadn't spent so much time there as a kid, I would've forgiven these things, but there was no excuse for her behavior. Last but not least, she exhibited some of those fatal flaws that i always see in female "heroines". The weak woman that the author is trying to make come off as strong variety. Also, the dumb woman who is trying to be portrayed as intelligent. Sarah Collier was both of these. Sarah snapped at Travis whenever he tried to help her out or suggest some things to her and her reply was in the area of "I'm a woman who can do anything and I think I know it all, I'm not a princess from a fairy tale who needs rescuing..." That's not verbatim, but that's the gist of what the reader gets from the way Sarah talks to him. Really? Seriously, Ms. Collier? It's funny because Travis was ALWAYS coming to her rescue! The dummy drops her cell phone in the water while she's out on a pedal boat sans jacket where nobody knows where she is. I can understand anybody being tempted to go out on the water during that time of day but a grown woman also knows that anything can happen and I don't appreciate it when authors dumb women down like this just for the sake of putting them in a compromising situation. We can all get in compromising situations without being stupid first, but when it's something so basic as seeing virtually no one around, no one knowing where she's going, and then going out in the middle of nowhere we're charting moron territory here. Is she trying to tell women that if they turn their brains off and do something reckless that their "Prince Charming" is going to rescue them? I can imagine how many women have tested guys this way after reading romance novels like this and have either gotten killed or been left hanging out to dry in the process after reading some stupid romance novel like this, and I'm not going to blame the guy for their stupidity. And as usual she's wearing those damn stilettos. While she's debating how strong she was as a woman after noticing she was in trouble and resisting calling people for help, that's when she lost her phone. But then she returns to Twilight STILL without a cell phone the second time which I thought was just unbelievable. I'm actually not a phone person myself, so I can understand how she wouldn't have one on some points, but realistically it's very naive to walk around without one at all nowadays and I'm talking for needful purposes. I have one right now that I wasn't using, but I keep 911 on it and carry it around in my purses or pockets when I go out and I just keep my home phone on. Simple. And also common sense. Sarah isn't a person who can't afford a cell phone she's just so whimsical and brainless she's traveling from state to state without one. How do people get in touch with her? Leaving messages at the front desk of the bed and breakfast she's staying in? Do they still do that??? That part of the story would probably work in the 1990s, but by the time this story was published it's just ludicrous. Also, in Sarah's purse she rattled off a list of her possessions: "Makeup, money, credit cards, driver's license, breath mints, tissues. What else do you need?" That is directly from the book itself and I wanted to punch her for it. Why on earth did she even take that purse with her when she went to help Travis get the tree?! She has nothing that would be of value where she went except the driver's license to be honest. I don't know about anybody else, but if I'm going out in the middle of nowhere I'm taking a big Luella Bartley type bag with me and I'm going to have not only what she has, but a bottle of water, a book (or a kindle), a friggin' snack, a cell phone, gloves and whatever else I think I might need at a moment's notice that can be stuffed in there. And what I just listed are the things I take with me on a daily basis almost or at the very least that stuff is in the back of my car somewhere. Travis was carrying everything they needed, it's just that his battery in his phone was dead or something like that, and she's going on about how she's not the type that needs rescuing. Please, she sounded like the type of woman who needs someone to hold her hand if she wants to cross the street. Now off Sarah, and onto Travis's Aunt Raylene.Before I finished reading the book, I hated that woman. What she did was not only selfish and irresponsible, but just plain EVIL! It would've been different if she hadn't been one of the people orchestrating Sarah's return to Twilight, but she calls back Jazzy's birth mother into all their lives when she sees that Travis seems to be getting serious with Sarah. She didn't take into account anyone's feelings but her own in this matter and seemed to not even consider the fact that if Travis wasn't pursuing her in any way that maybe there was a reason. There was a little girl to take into account, that could have her world not just disrupted, but torn apart by this, but Raylene throws caution to the wind and does something that horrible to them all. I didn't think it was all that sappy, but I did feel more frustration reading about these people dancing around one another pretending not to have feelings or fighting for over 300 pages of the book. It reminded me why I don't pick up a lot of romance novels, but this one was worth buying for the cover alone. It truly is a beautiful book and I'm talking about the picture on the outside of it. Then I read the first page and the description on the back and went for it. It's a nice little story, and given the chance I'd read it again, but the characters Sarah and Raylene did get on my last nerves. Just because a woman doesn't express emotions doesn't make her "strong", nor does it make her seem strong; what it does is make her seem like a potential sociopath when it's done the way that this book did it. Lots of authors have the ability to use this characteristic to their character's advantage, but that's not what happened here. In all fairness, this book has lots of redeeming qualities and I would recommend it, but it's far from being perfect. I'm also very glad that more girls have better female protagonists to look up to in literature like Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games and the character in Ada Legend of a Healer than this kind of drivel in the form of Sarah Collier and Raylene Pringle. Although I would buy this book again without hesitation, I don't think I would ever buy another one by this author. I couldn't deal with reading about women behaving this way in a book that takes more than a day to read--no common sense, weak, and not seeming to know what they want even though they're adults and should know better. All that back and forth head case stuff about telling the man you know you really want that all you want is sex from him is just plain childish and using the excuse that the girl is 24 or whatever isn't going to fly. I'd rather put myself out there and get knocked down and know where I stand than lower myself and have meaningless sex (or tell him that) with a guy that I know I truly want more from.Overall, this book is a lovely read if you don't look too much into it, and go into it with the idea that it's a flimsy little read with nice descriptions then you should be okay.

Eine Legende der kleinen Stadt Twilight besagt, dass man von seiner einzig wahren Liebe träumt, wenn man sich ein Weihnachtsplätzchen unter das Kopfkissen legt. Als Teenagerin hat auch Sarah Collier sich jedes Jahr ein Plätzchen unter den Kopf gelegt und von ihrer heimlichen Liebe Travis Walker geträumt. Bis zu dem Zeitpunkt, an dem alle ihre Träume platzten. Er heiratete eine andere und sie blamierte sich vor ihm bis auf die Knochen. Seitdem glaubt sie nicht mehr an die Liebe, an die Legende von Twilight. Zehn Jahre später lebt Sarah als Bestsellerautorin in New York. Sie schreibt erfolgreich Kinderbücher und hat sich geschworen, niemand mehr so stark in ihr Herz zu lassen, wie früher Travis. Als sie der Fanbrief eines kranken Mädchens erreicht, wird sie gezwungen nach Twilight zurückzukehren. Sie begegnet Travis wieder und ihr Leben wird so sehr auf den Kopf gestellt, dass sich auch ihr Herz irgendwann fragt, ob an der Plätzchenlegende vielleicht doch etwas dran ist. Lori Wilde hat einen unglaublich schönen Schreibstil. Er ist locker und leicht und man fühlt sich direkt nach Twilight versetzt. Ein malerisches Dörfchen, dass zum Träumen einlädt. Die Charaktere waren mir direkt sympatisch, wobei sich vor allem Sarah direkt in mein Herz geschlichen hat.Sie ist zu Beginn der Geschichte 13 Jahre alt und glaubt fest an die Legende des Weihnachtsplätzchens unter dem Kopfkissen. Sie ist sich sicher, dass Travis und sie füreinander bestimmt sind. Umso mehr bricht ihre Welt zusammen, als er eine andere heiratet. Bei seiner Hochzeit blamiert sie sich vollkommen vor ihm, zieht sich in ihre eigene Welt zurück und später sogar aus Twilight weg.In New York baut sie sich ein neues Leben auf, weit weg von Twilight und ihrem gebrochenen Herzen.Bis zu dem Moment, in dem sie sich dem herzzerreissenden Brief eines kleines Mädchens nicht entziehen kann und erneut zurück kehrt. Travis war mir auch direkt sympatisch. Auch, als sie beide noch Kinder waren, als sie sich vor ihm blamiert hat. Er kümmert sich aufopfernd um seine kleine Tochter, erfüllt ihr jeden Wunsch. Als Sarah erneut in sein Leben tritt, lernen sich die beiden fast neu kennen. Sie entdecken Gemeinsamkeit und neue Seiten, ein Umstand, der mir wirklich sehr gefallen hat. Natürlich weiss man bei solchen Roman automatisch, wie sie ausgehen, aber hier habe ich mich so gerne nach Twilight entführen lassen. Schneelandschaften, die zum Träumen einladen. Charaktere, bei denen einem das Herz aufgeht und eine Hintergrundgeschichte, die das Herz direkt schwer werden lassen. Ich habe mich in Twilight fast schon zuhause gefühlt. Obwohl es nicht das erste Buch der Twilight - Reihe von Lori Wilde ist, tut es dem Lesevergnügen keinen Abbruch.Ich habe mit den Charakteren mitgefiebert. Ich habe mit ihnen gelacht, gelitten und gezittert. Es ist einfach ein Buch, dass sich zwischendurch lesen lässt, wenn man das Gefühl hat, einfach mal der Realität entfliehen zu müssen.In Twilight fühlt man sich zuhause, in Twilight gibt es Charaktere, die einem ans Herz wachsen, die man begleiten möchte.Ein für mich rundum gelungener Weihnachtsroman, der sich prima zum Abschalten und Träumen eignet.

Das Buch habe ich mit einer Freundin getauscht ,da sie total begeistert war und ja ich verstehe es. Man wird in die Geschichte von Sarah.Sarah,damals 15, war immer in Travis verliebt und ihre Oma hat Schicksalsplätzchen gebacken,die man zu Weihnachten unters Kissen legt und davon sieht man die Liebe des Lebens in einen Traum.Daswar für Sarah immer Travis...aber dann heiratet er.Ein Sprung von 9 Jahren gibt es dann, Sarah ist nun Autorin und dazu sehr erfolgreich,bekommt ein Brief von einem Kind was bald sterben wird und möchte unbedingt Sadie Cool, unter dem Namen schreibt Sarah kennen lernen. Das schlimmste das das Kind in der Stadt wohnt wo sie nie mehr hin wollte,aber sie willdem Kind den Wunsch erfüllen...und das Schicksal kann böse sein, den das kleine Mädchen ist Travis seine Tochter.....Die Charaktere sind liebevoll ins leben erweckt worden, anders kann ich es nicht sagen.Sarah ist eher schüchtern nur als Sadie ist sie stark und versteckt sich so dahinter. Sarah kann nicht mit Gefühlen umgehen und das erschwert alles noch dazu..Travis mochte ich sofort, er hat immer ein Spruch auf Lager und würde für seine Tochter sterben. Jazzy ist die Tochter von Travis uns ist sehr stark und ist sofort vernarrt in Sarah.Auch die anderen Einwohner des Städtchen hat jeder seine Geschichte und das rundet die Geschichte ab.Ich habe total mit gefiebert und das Buch zügig durch gehabt. Auch wenn es eine Wintergeschichte ist, entführt sie uns zu einen Ort wo man träumen kann.Das Buch hat alles, Familie, Liebe, Eifersucht,Streit usw.Das war das erste Buch für mich von der Autorin aber sicher nicht das letzte ;)

Daughter of two doctors dedicated to their work who traveled a lot, Sarah Collier grew up spending all summers and Holidays with her grandma in Twilight. The rest of the time, she was at boarding school. In Twilight, there was her crush, Travis Walker, her grandmother's neighbor and older than Sarah by 5 years. Because of Twilight's lore about a dream she made, our young heroine fancied herself in love with Travis. So the day she learn he's getting married, Sara run to the church to declare her feelings. After heartbreak and humiliation, Sarah turned to writing. Nine years later, she's an author who wrote a Christmas book for children that became very popular. While working on her second book, she receive a touching letter from a little girl with a serious life-threatening condition. After losing her grandma's eight years ago, Sarah never came back to Twilight and never intended to. But she can't refuse helping her little fan. In Twilight, Sarah become a temporary member of the First Love Cookie Club, who manage almost all the events and festivals in town. And plot twist! Travis bought her grandma's house and he's the father of the little girl she came to help. Lori Wilde's books are always sweet but what makes this one even more touching was the author's note at the beginning where she explains this story was inspired by a real classmate she met again when she was a nurse and he came every week at the clinic with his little girl. She said it was her way to give an happy ending when real life didn't. Except for the fact I wanted an epilogue, I enjoyed everything about this book.

Enjoyable There were things I liked, such as the storyline, the love and devotion Travis has for his daughter and the lengths he would go through to save his daughter, and more. I can understand Sarah’s feelings of low self esteem. What I didn’t like were the errors that, although minor, should have been caught before publication and the numerous occurrences of words repeated three times in a row. Do we get to hear about Sarah’s latest book in a future story as well as what happens to some of the other characters?

After watching the super cute and Christmassy A Kismet Christmas on Hallmark Channel, I had to read the book it was based on! The book was an easy-breezy, cozy read and prepared me for the Christmas season. The book was a bit more heavy and sad than the happy Hallmark Channel movie; it added a depth and emotion to the story. The book is the third in a series about the small town, Twilight and the movie mostly follows the book it is based off of.