Ashley Farley has written another can't put down, addicting southern small town family drama with lots of twists, romance, and mystery in Dream Big Stella, the first book in the new Hope Springs series. I love how she describes the small town, so like my hometown with all the different shops, the coffee bar, the library, and the churches. After Stella Boor's father dies, she inherits his historic Inn and farm in the mountains of Virginia. She has never known her father and what she learns about him and the rest of her family builds into an awesome, rewarding saga that kept me interested to the very last page and wanting more about the inhabitants of Hope Springs , the Inn, and the farm. Luckily there is more in this series, Show Me The Way and Mistletoe and Wedding Bells, which I will surely be getting and reading. I have become an avid fan of Ashley Farley's books! ( )

You can always depend on an Ashley Farley book. She's one of my go-to authors when I need a good story with a happily ever after ending. Her characters are always well written and feel like people I know and her books are just plain fun.

Stella lives in New York City and is about the get fired from another job - in fact, she's lost three jobs in the last year. When she gets to her apartment after being fired, there is a lawyer waiting at her door. He has come from Virginia to tell her that her father has died and left her his land and an historic inn in Hope Springs, Va. Her mothers have never given her any information about her father so this comes as a complete shock to her. She decides to go to Virginia and check things out and is shocked when she sees the dilapidated state of the inn. . She's met with mixed reactions - the lawyer is happy, the hotel manager is very unhappy but since its stipulated in the will that she has to keep the inn for three years until she can sell it, she decides to re-do the inn and make it popular again. Along the way, she meets more of the people at Hope Springs. She feels like many of them know more of her story than she does and as she gradually learns about her family's past, the more she learns about herself and her strength.. This book is full of family drama and love and lots of terrific characters. I can't wait until book 2 in the series is published. ( )