The Second Yes Review and Giveaway!

The Second Yes: Five of today’s Best-selling Christian Authors weave six brand-new, unique, interconnected stories of what happens after the bride says yes to him and yes to the dress.
Something Borrowed, Someone Blue: A borrowed dress, half-completed marriage counseling, and a last-minute theft.
Let’s face it. Weddings equal stress for the families involved. Preachers, however, have it easy. Or so they say.
Ty Jamison’s first parishioner is getting married. Though he’s performed many services at the little chapel in New Cheltenham–grand affairs, all designed to give the illusion of simplicity–all of them were strangers to him.
So when Lara Priest asks him to perform the ceremony at her wedding, and to use the chapel, of course, Ty is thrilled. That joy fades as one by one, things go wrong. From a groom who refuses to attend pre-marital counseling to Lara discovering that her dream wedding dress is a no-can-do, what can go wrong seems to.
And like so many weddings that movies are made of, things go from bad to worse to “worser.”
All the while, Ty tries to remind himself that he only has to provide a little premarital counseling, show up, perform the service, and find a way to hide his broken heart through the whole ordeal.
All in a life’s work.

My thoughts: This is the first Crossroads set of stories that I have read, and I enjoyed it tremendously! The stories are loosely woven together with the common theme of a bridal shop, ending with a story about the wedding dress designer, which ties things up nicely. I enjoyed each of the stories and the different styles they are written in! The characters are so unique. I enjoyed Chautona's story the best, since it was filled with unexpected twists and turns. I highly recommend the whole collection though! This is a delightful set of books that can be read separately, or enjoyed together (though, I recommend reading the whole thing!) .
I received this book from Celebrate Lit. This is my honest review and is in no way influenced by receiving a complimentary copy.

About the Author
Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her on the web and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More from Chautona
The tiny bridal shop held dozens of dresses. Frothy princess dresses, twenties dropped-waist dresses, straight, short, silky, shiny satin, lace, beaded appliques… I looked at them all and found an ivory jacquard, tea length, dress by Jessica McClintock. It was a hundred dollars. To a girl making $4.25 an hour and too broke to buy food, it might as well have been a thousand. Still, it was also cheaper than any other dress in the store and just my style.
I pulled out the twenty-dollars I’d saved by doing extra work around my apartment for the landlord and said I’d put it on layaway.
My maid of honor protested.
The dress wasn’t fancy enough. It didn’t reach the floor. It wasn’t white. I didn’t look good in ivory (she was right on that one, anyway), and the veil I’d fallen in love with—you know the $120 veil I could never afford—wouldn’t look good with it.
Duh.
Look, I was eighteen (barely), and had parents who would have paid me to elope in Las Vegas in lieu of the wedding. Two months later, we did go… And we still had the wedding, but that’s a story for another day.
I left the store with my choice on layaway. Went home and later told my fiancé about the thing. He said to get the one I wanted. And I had. Still, I got the impression that he thought I actually wanted the other one… and maybe he meant that I should get that one.
That left a conundrum. Did he like the sound of the other one more? Was that why? The traditional white and floor-length thing? I went back to the shop the next day to look again. Seriously, if we’d had cellphones back then, I would have taken a picture and asked him.
That’s when I found out the white one was now on layaway—not the ivory I’d chosen. The decision had been made for me.
And so went the rest of my wedding planning.
I made one decision. It was countermanded as not grand enough, not traditional enough, too cheap, not enough… One decision, I’d made involved flowers. I called to ask about something after I’d ordered them and found they’d been changed to something else. I lost it—informed the florist that if any changes were not made in person with my driver’s license as proof of me making them, then when the wedding day came, if the flowers were wrong, I’d do without flowers. We wouldn’t have any. And I wouldn’t pay for them.
I wish I’d have had the backbone to do more of that.
But come on, I was eighteen. My mother didn’t have anything to do with wedding planning. They’d agreed to show up in whatever clothes we told them to, and that was it.
Back to the dress. I think it’s important to note that I did love that white, floor-length dress. It was beautiful, it looked good on me, and it would make for lovely pictures. It would.
It just wasn’t what I’d chosen.
You see, I’d said “yes” to a dress—just not the one that I had agreed to pay for. Instead, it was the one that was almost four times the cost of the one I already couldn’t afford.
I’d always planned to tell the story—fictionalized, of course—but I figured it would be about Rockland’s wedding planning company, “The Agency.” So, when it came time to do my book for the next Crossroads collection, The Second Yes, I was surprised to discover that elements of my own wedding kept cropping up in different ways.
The motivation is different in Something Borrowed, Someone Blue, but the result is the same—a girl who, no matter what happens, can’t seem to have the wedding she envisions.
The question is… is that a good thing?

For a complete list of blog stops, go here.

Giveaway!
To celebrate her tour, Chautona is giving away a grand prize that includes a Spa Basket designed to soothe any bride’s nerves (or to make any reader feel as though she is part of the bridal party and getting pampered before the big day) and also includes a $25 gift certificate to Amazon (Image not reflective of actual contents)!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link here to enter.