review: one season of sunshine by julia london

One Season of Sunshine finds schoolteacher Jane Aaron spending her summer break searching for her birth mother. Hers was a closed adoption in 1980 and the lawyer who arranged it has passed away. Since her birth mother isn’t listed in an adoption registry, Jane’s only clue is that she has born in a Cedar Springs, TX hospital. Unfortunately, Jane’s boyfriend and some family members aren’t exactly supportive of her decision to move to Cedar Springs for the summer. The typical distance conflicts arise between Jane and her boyfriend, who proposed to Jane before she left; Jane has yet to give him an answer when she leaves.

Because of the economy, there aren’t many jobs in Cedar Springs; Jane accepts a nanny position against her better judgment. Jane intended to have a job with little responsibility so she’d have time to search for her birth mother and write her thesis. Instead she ends up with the huge responsibility of caring for two children (one an angst-filled teen, one a young boy with some anger) who have lost their mother and have a workaholic father. Once the father becomes more involved in his children’s lives things get even more complicated for Jane as the two start connecting romantically.

I completely adored One Season of Sunshine; Jane was so relatable even though I don’t have much in common with her (definitely none of the big things). Although I wished that her birth mother search had been a little easier (it seemed that someone in such a small town should’ve remembered a woman putting a baby up for adoption), I liked that her answers didn’t come immediately and that she struggled with how much she wanted to know.

And for those who wondered what happened with Macy from Summer of Two Wishes, there is a little update as this book takes place in the same town.
5/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Pocket Books.