Once Upon a Cabin (Sweet Home, Alaska Book 2) by Patience Griffin Published by Berkley on November 30, 2021
Pages: 320
Goodreads
Two sisters from Texas find themselves exiled to Alaska . . . and thrown into the arms of two very different men.
Tori and McKenna St. James have been living comfortably on their trust funds in Dallas. But their uncle Monty, keeper of the purse strings, decides to push them out of their comfort zones by requiring them to spend one year in Alaska or lose their inheritance. Initially the sisters are stunned, but they aren't willing to back down from the challenge.
Tori is sent to a primitive homestead outside the tiny town of Sweet Home. She had been prepared to forego fashion magazines and lattes, but not electricity and running water! Will her rugged wilderness guide, Jesse Montana, teach her to survive, or send her fleeing back to civilization? Meanwhile, outdoorsy McKenna is stuck within the concrete walls of an Anchorage bank. Her sexy boss Luke McAvoy is tasked with teaching her the business but what he’s really doing is tempting her. Not that she’s the type to fall for a stuffed suit like him.
Tori and McKenna find much needed solace with Sweet Home’s Sisterhood of the Quilt. Will this crafty group of women be up to the challenge of teaching two outsiders how to sew—and perhaps how to love?
Before I begin my review I quickly want to thank Penguin Random House USA for sending me a eGalley of the book to read for my tour stop today.
This is the second book in the Sweet Home, Alaska series. The first book is One Snowy Night. I don’t think you need to read the previous one to read this as it seems like each of the books has different main characters but with Sweet Home being a small town characters will overlap from the first book into this. There will be a third book, the title and release date are unknown currently.
When I got selected for this tour I went ahead and ordered the first book so I am currently waiting for that to arrive and as soon as it does I plan on reading it ASAP because I loved Once Upon a Cabin. I loved everything about it and I was instantly hooked. I had a hard time putting it down.
The book takes place in a small little town in Alaska called Sweet Home. This is the kind of town where everyone knows you. The people are super helpful and friendly. The kind of people who will drop everything to help out a neighbor.
Our two main characters are sisters McKenna and Tori. They have been raised by their wealthy uncle Monty after their parents’ deaths. The sisters have been living an extravagant lifestyle and they want for nothing. The sisters think all is good until their uncle Monty pulls the rug from under them telling them that they will now have to fend for themselves with no help from him for a year. He informs the girls through the lawyer that they are going to Alaska but not together, They will be living separately. They will have to do this for one year and if they can’t handle it he intends to cut them out of his will. Will the girls be able to go through with this for a year or will they bail as soon as things get tough?
It was interesting to see how he perceived the girls and what they could do if they put their minds to it. McKenna who seems to be more the outdoor person he sent her to work in a bank and Tori who is more a business person sends her to live and make her own homestead and live off the land. They aren’t doing this alone as Monty has hired two guys to help them out. Jesse is a wilderness guy and knows how to run a homestead and Luke. who is the bank manager in Anchorage. The guys are best friends and grew up together. Both are experts in their field of work.
It was interesting at first because even though the guys were good-looking no one was really interested in each other at first and as the story progressed you could see that everyone was starting to see the other person differently.
I think the only thing I had a beef with was uncle Monty putting Tori in harm’s way. He knowsTori has severe allergies to basically everything and her life could have been put in danger and in fact, it was. She didn’t have access to a phone or electricity for her nebulizer. Thankfully Jesse was there to help and it was all due to Jesse’s actions that would save her. He speaks out and thankfully Monty hears him and makes up for his mistake and made it better. I thought the whole time that this could have been avoided. What would have happened if it ended up more serious?
I should warn you that if you plan on reading this have some kleenex on hand because that last 1/4 of the book had me in tears it was so sweet and heartwarming. I should also mention that this is a slow-burn romance (the sparks were there throughout the book and I know a few times I was like just kiss already) and I was okay with that. It was nice to watch all the characters grow as people and realize what they wanted out of life and it didn’t involve having tons of money. You can be happy with the simpler things in life.
I really enjoyed this and definitely want to continue this series.
Donna Y. Ferris lives in West Chester, PA with her husband and dogs – and spends as much time as possible with her two Musketeers in Pittsburgh (the home of her beloved Steelers). We’ve Got to Stop Meeting Like This – A Memoir of Missed Connections is her first 
