The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill (Tales from Ivy Hill, #1) by Julie Klassen

First Series from Bestselling Author Julie Klassen!

On a rise overlooking the Wiltshire countryside stands the village of Ivy Hill. Its coaching inn, The Bell, is its lifeblood--along with the coach lines that stop there daily, bringing news, mail, travelers, and much-needed trade.

Jane Bell lives on the edge of the inn property. She had been a genteel lady until she married the charming innkeeper who promised she would never have to work in his family's inn. But when he dies under mysterious circumstances, Jane finds herself The Bell's owner, and worse, she has three months to pay a large loan or lose the place.

Feeling reluctant and ill-equipped, Jane is tempted to abandon her husband's legacy and return to her former life of ease. However, she soon realizes there is more at stake than her comfort. But who can she trust to help her? Her resentful mother-in-law? Her husband's brother, who wanted the inn for himself? Or the handsome newcomer with secret plans of his own . . . ?

With pressure mounting from the bank, Jane struggles to win over naysayers and turn the place around. Can Jane bring new life to the inn, and to her heart as well?

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About The Author

Julie Klassen loves all things Jane—Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Julie worked in publishing for sixteen years and now writes full time. Three of her books, The Silent Governess, The Girl in the Gatehouse, and The Maid of Fairbourne Hall, have won the Christy Award for Historical Romance. She has also won the Midwest Book Award, the Minnesota Book Award, and Christian Retailing’s BEST Award, and been a finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Awards and ACFW’s Carol Awards. She blogs at http://www.inspiredbylifeandfiction.com.
Julie and her husband have two sons and live in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. 


My Review

ane Bell has been a widow for about a year when this book opens, she is starting to come back to life, and when she does her Inn is falling apart, and is now mortgaged to the hilt and beyond. She never wanted to own the inn, but her late husband John left all of this to her, and not to his brother or mother.
Now with unanswered questions concerning John’s early death, she is shouldering a big conundrum as to how to save the inn, and keep the mail stages coming. Surprising help comes to her, and I kept hoping she would find a love match, but not in this book, and maybe never, but there is hope with another book to come!
You are going to wonder if some of the people she trusts might have bee involved in borrowing that large amount of money, and the ultimately the death of her husband. Will Jane have to move, along with her mother-in-law and brother-in-law, or there are possible answers to keeping the Bell Inn.
I loved the how Jane makes friends with one of the feral cats, and the consequences of doing so, a laugh out loud moment.
I received this book through Library Thing, and was not required to give a positive review.