September 2, 2013
Woods’s 10th Chesapeake Shores contemporary (after The Summer Garden) has few surprises. Renowned songwriter Jenny Collins is having difficulties coming to terms with her mom’s happy marriage to an O’Brien. Nonetheless, a bad tabloid-splashed breakup with her cheating pop star boyfriend, Caleb Green, has Jenny retreating to her beachside hometown for Christmas. Caleb knows that performing Jenny’s latest tune could help him make a comeback, but he’ll have follow Jenny to Chesapeake Shores to get her permission. As Caleb is drawn into the sphere of the O’Brien family through participation in a local Christmas show, he predictably helps Jenny begin to feel at home there again. This Christmas tale is set against a huge warm Irish-American family cast with an ending that turns out “exactly the way it was supposed to.”