A special treat to warm your heart, just in time for the holidays—a sparkling new novel from New York Times bestselling author Fern Michaels. . . . Christmas is more than just a celebration for Lauren Montgomery. For generations, it’s been her family’s livelihood. Their Christmas shop, Razzle Dazzle Décor, has seen seasonal fads come and go, but there’s one trend they can’t escape. Online … one trend they can’t escape. Online superstores are swallowing their sales, and this Christmas season will need to be their best ever if the store is to stay in business.
To help keep the shop afloat, Lauren also has a sideline, writing biographies for business figures. She’s thrilled when her literary agent contacts her with a new proposal and quickly agrees to the terms—before learning that the subject will be none other than the CEO of Globalgoods.com, the online retailer that has spelled doom for hundreds of small businesses just like Razzle Dazzle Décor. Despite her misgivings, Lauren travels to Seattle to confer with the mogul, and is caught off guard by his son, John Jr. Handsome, intelligent, and deeply kind, he’s perfect—apart from the fact that he’ll soon be CEO of the company threatening everything Lauren loves.
As her deadline, and Christmas, draw closer, Lauren knows that there’s more than her family’s shop at stake. Her heart is, too. But there’s no better time than the holidays to make a secret wish on the brightest star you see—and let the season’s magic take hold . . .
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The Brightest Star by Fern Michaels
Starts out with Lauren and she researches and writes other bio’s. She’s good at her job and loves the work. When she gets the call from her mother about her fathers failing health she sells everything and heads home to Fallen Pines, NC. She then runs the shop for them. The shop has been in the family for years and it has a bit of everything anybody would ever need.
Lots of fancy hand crafted items: scarves, hats, mittens, glass ornaments and it’s Christmas Time. She knows the family has to get on the band wagon and advertise online. She has to also put her own money into the venture just to keep it going through the holidays.
She places an ad and a man walks in that grabs her attention. He wants all the hand made music boxes, they cost him a fortune and notices his name. She runs into him again at the diner and again other places. She gets a call from her agent and comes to an agreement about her next assignment.
A CEO of a company that sells online only so she starts doing her research. She also has 3 girls come in one day to buy one ailing mother a gift, an angel and Lauren has the perfect thing for her. She recalls going to high school with Lee and offers them a treasured afghan she was going to keep for herself that her mom had made. She learns more about the girls mom and in her mind she knows with the money from her work she can afford to help them.
She gets that plan in action also calling on others to help out. Her parents and others try to get her to date but she has no time for all that and has to reassure her mom she is not gay. It was a funny time in the story when everything looked so dismal. Love the trip to Settle as we have just returned from there and views are priceless.
Love where the story goes from there and how she, like us appreciate a home cooked meal while on the road.
Loved hearing of all the items in the shop and about her father’s progression with his disease… So many help her in this book, a village of people, friends, family and acquaintances to make it all work. Love that this book covers a lot of different age groups and their specific problems.
Not as predictable as the authors other works so really enjoyed this one and can’t wait to read more.
I received this review book from Net Galley and this is my honest opinion.
#TheBrightestStar #NetGalley
Another good book by fern michaels romance family strife and struggles
A writer gets a call to go home and help her family
Gives up everything to go home but has a lot of problems with her father not wanting to be up to date with shop
She gets the chance to write a biography for a rich man and decides to go after father treats her badly was interesting and well written made me feel like I knew the characters
It was a slow read.
The Brightest Star by Fern Michaels is a well written, heartwarming novel about Lauren who is a successful author and returns home to run the family Christmas decorations store while her mother cares for her father who is ill. Lauren then steps in and helps a young high school girl and her seriously ill mother. Fern Michaels is a favorite author of mine and she is to be commended for writing such a touching, heartfelt story. The characters were carefully crafted and created and were perfect for this book. I think it would have been better to have John be introduced into the storyline sooner and include the blossoming attraction/romance between Lauren and John. I rated it a four.
Easy read, well written, characters were well defined.
It was terrible
I enjoyed Lauren and John and their instant “love at first sight” connection. The small town, close-knit setting in North Carolina was just right. I especially liked how everything that Lauren hoped and dreamed for all came together toward the end of book.
More a 3.5
I have mixed feelings about this one. The writing was good and I absolutely loved the Christmas spirit portrayed by Lauren but I think it just had too much going on. The beginning started out great and then the story went off on so many tangents I lost a bit of the initial love. The ending also felt extremely rushed.
There is a romance although it was very, very quick with no in-depth quality. They meet, briefly, then all of a sudden they are in love with no real development leading to it. I enjoy a good love-at-first-sight but this lacked so much in showcasing that.
I haven’t read anything by this author before and this is a more recent book of hers. I’m definitely going to check out her older stuff as I did enjoy the writing and the setting.
I would also still recommend this one as it does have plenty of feel-good moments and makes for a good Christmas read. It just didn’t wholly work for me.
The Brightest Star mixes today’s shopping/selling technology with those small independent shops that, for one reason or another, have not hopped onto the online purchase bandwagon and are paying the price for that decision is lowered sales and an uncertain business future.
Lauren writes biographies, and she’s quite good at it. She’s been offered the chance to write a very famous businessman’s story, yet that man and his online shopping dynasty are the very reason she left Florida to return home to help her parents in their small specialty shop when her father became unable to run the shop. It’s hard to turn down the offer for several reasons, yet Lauren eventually goes to the meeting and discovers that love strikes unexpectedly when she meets the man’s son and an almost instant attraction sparks between them.
The Brightest Star is a good book. There were parts where I had some serious (for me) issues – yet to go into those issues would definitely involve spoilers so I’m simply going to leave it alone. It’s one of those times when I enjoyed most of a story but those sticky issues often took me so far out of the story that it became annoying. Yet what one person simply likes another person would love, so the final decision should be up to you. I’ve read Fern Michaels’ work for years, so I’ll look forward to the next book.
*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the publisher, Kensington Books via NetGalley. That does not change what I think of this story. It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*
A Heartwarming Christmas Story with surprises along the way. A great book to snuggle next to the fire.
Great story!
The Brightest Star is another fine example of the good books by Fern Michaels. This story highlights the importance of family, the technology divide between the generations and Mom and Pop businesses surviving against the big box stores. The mail character is Lauren, she is an author primarily of biographies, but when her parents need her she drops “everything” in her personal life and rushes home. She is given an opportunity to write a biography while working in her parents store and when she accepts the assignment her whole life changes. An enjoyable read. I would recommend it.
Lauren is a New York Times best-selling biographer. When her father, a technophobe, becomes ill, she stops writing to take over running the family business. When an offer to write the biography of a Jeff Bezos-type of business mogul presents itself, Lauren takes it on. She finds more than she expected.
My opinion of this book is that The Brightest Star is rather dim. The story starts out very slowly, but does pick up about halfway through, when Lauren’s parents are out of the picture. There’s not a lot of Christmas for a Christmas novel. You do, however, get to spend a lot of time in a Christmas decoration store. Even there, there’s very little Christmas-y atmosphere: lights in the store window, a fireplace, and, occasionally, you’re told that holiday music is playing in the background. It’s also a romance, but the romance is cursory. The real story deals with how business is changing due to online shopping, and how her father’s refusal to move into the twenty-first century is driving their business into bankruptcy.
There are a few generous acts, but there’s no possibility that things would work in real life as they do in the book. That’s one of the real problems of this book, it’s not believable. The characters, like the story, are like cardboard, flat and stereotypical. Despite the fact that Lauren is a highly successful author, her mother, who supposedly is a big supporter, tells Lauren that she can “write your little story” when that story is the biggest of Lauren’s career. The book ticks just about every trope you could imagine for this type of book, but its all dealt with superficially.
I won a publication copy of this book on Goodreads, not an advanced reader copy. So I was completely surprised to see how many errors riddled the book. Those errors should have been caught by an editor/proofreader. And the ending? Given how the “real” 2020 is likely to end, the epilogue seems ridiculous. That, too, should have been corrected by an editor.
This is the second book by Fern Michaels that I’ve read. I’m not impressed with her writing. I have one more book of hers to read, and I don’t want to pre-judge, but I suspect it will be the last of her books that I bother with.
I thank the publisher and Goodreads for allowing me to win and read this book. Their generosity had no effect on this review. All opinions in this review reflect my true and honest reactions to reading this book.
This was a very delightful, heartfelt story to get you into the Christmas mood. Lauren Montgomery, puts her writing of biographies of famous people on the back burner to come home and help run her family store. Now she has a tremendous opportunity to write another biography and hopefully help save her parents’ store. And as an added bonus, she finds the love of her life. I enjoyed immersing myself in this quick read. Well done!
Thank-you to Kensington Publishing and Between the Chapters for an ARC of The Brightest Star by Fern Michaels in exchange for my honest review. I usually love Fern Michaels novels and her as a writer. I enjoyed this sweet book but not as much as others she has written. As always, she has well developed and interesting characters throughout most of the novel. Ms. Michael’s also has wonderful themes in this book. There is a lot about helping family and friends and balancing life to look out for you own happiness too. My biggest complaint and the reason for a lower star rating this time is that the first 3/4 of the book just drags and repeats itself. The last 1/4 of the book was great and I would have liked to see more development of the character’s involved in that portion. The novel follows Lauren Montgomery, a biography writer, who returns to her childhood home to help her parents run and keep afloat the family business, Razzle Dazzle Decor. Lauren is generous, kind and extremely helpful with friends, family and strangers. She is able to help multiple people in various situations due to her proceeds from her writing. Lauren is contracted to write a new biography, for Mr. Giompolo, in a six week period in exchange for a handsome salary. As a result of going to interview him for the book she sees what it is like to live his lifestyle and meets various members of his staff and family. I will stop here so I don’t give too much away. I would have given the novel 3 1/2 stars out of 5 if I could.
This is a sweet story that is easily a one day read. It is a story of family. One that centers around the family’s holiday store and their need to work together to save it. I did like the characters and found the story enjoyable. However, there were pacing inconsistencies. Parts were very repetitive and others rushed or glossed over. The male character didn’t come into play until the latter part of the book and their relationship seemed contrived and rushed. I also couldn’t get a good grasp on what was going on with her parents and couldn’t tell where the story was trying to lead me. Her Dad’s illness and moodiness was finally explained, but it was iffy for a while. There was even a bit where I was beginning to think that her mother was going a senile. It was confusing. Overall, the story has good bones, but needs more tweaking to make it worthy of what we usually get from a Fern Michaels read.
Lauren is been back in her hometown for three years, helping in the family store since his father illness. But this year seems to be the last one for the store if she can’t convince their parent to enter the twenty first century. Can she change their point of view and achieve a new life for everyone? Meeting a handsome man and his father will bring all she needs in life. Sweet bright story
I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review. This book offers the readers different things written into one book. I love reading Christmas themed books any time because they are uplifting, caring, and there is always a little magic.
Lauren moves back home after hearing her father’s illness is serious to help out in the family store. One of my favorite things about the book is stepping back in time because the Razzle Dazzle Décor hadn’t modernized. In one way it was like two worlds colliding, the way things were and the way things are. But in both worlds, we have the love of family, the spirit of the community, neighbors helping neighbors, and miracles happen. This is what I got out of reading the book but as I read the book, I could see where others would take other things going on in the book and get them excited. I love to read a book that different people will take away different things from one book and this is one of those books.