"The Sweet Life" by Suzanne Woods Fisher

If you love ice cream, you will probably enjoy this book, because a LOT of it revolves around making and consuming ice cream.  I read the whole book in one day while on a road trip and insisted we stop somewhere with ice cream for supper because I neeeeeded some.

When Dawn Dixon's fiancé calls off their wedding and, that same day, she learns her widowed mom has secretly been battling cancer, Dawn goes into an emotional tailspin.  Her fiancé insists she go on their already-paid-for-and-non-refundable honeymoon trip to Cape Cod, and take whomever along she wants.  Dawn picks her mom, Marnie.  Marnie is unpredictable, freewheeling, and secretive.  Dawn is secretive too, but prefers that her life be predictable and regimented, so she and her mom clash a lot, especially when Marnie decides to buy a dilapidated historic building and turn it into a quaint ice cream shop.   With Dawn's help, because Dawn loves to make ice cream.

This is the first book of a series, so not everything gets figured out and resolved by the end, but the ice cream shop does open, and the two main characters do come to understand each other much better.

I really liked that this book revolved around the relationship between a mother and daughter, rather than around a romantic relationship, though those existed on the fringes of the story.  And I loved all the ice cream making :-)  And I liked that Marnie had solid faith in God and was a regular churchgoer, but Dawn didn't and wasn't, so we got to see a mother helping her daughter grow and mature in her faith.  That was cool.  

However, the writing was very simplistic most of the time, almost to the point of being clunky.  There was also an awful lot of telling us how a person felt or what kind of person they were, rather than showing us those things.

Particularly Good Bits:

She was a big believer in miracles.  Big ones, small ones, everyday ones.  You just had to keep your eyes on the lookout for them (p. 29).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG.  You have some romantic sparkage here and there, but it's not exactly a "kissing book."