Secretly Smitten - Colleen Coble, Kristen Billerbeck, Diann Hunt & Denise Hunter

This is the second book about the small town of Smitten, Vermont.  The first one, Smitten, was a pleasant read and I enjoyed it enough to pick this one up when the price dropped.

This time, we are following three sisters (cousins to Natalie from Smitten) and their mother. There's also the continuing story of their grandmother's lost love throughout all four short stories.

First up is Tess.  When some mysterious dog tags are located in the attic, Tess is determined to find out more about her grandmother's lost love, David.  Ryan owns the house David used to live in and they search together for clues to the mystery of how the dog tags of a man who died overseas during the war could possibly turn up in Tess' grandmother's attic.

Next up is her sister, Zoe.  She's found her passion in finding matches for other people. Scraping together her savings, she's purchased a store that is not quite up to code. William finds the flaws and points them out to her.  It's for her safety after all.  He wants to get closer to her, but his responsibilities to his job keep pushing her away.

Third is the mother of the girls, Anna.  She was left 10 years ago and basically traded in for another family.  Michael has come to town to take care of his ailing mother and is attracted to Anna.  But she has dealt with a military man before and had so much belittling that she has erected a wall around her heart.

Last up is Clare.  She loves her plants and has a landscaper's eye.  Being dumped for being predictable and boring, she hires Ethan just to prove that she can be spontaneous. Ethan sees that she has talent and wants to get her to see beyond the safe way she does things to the possibilities of following her dreams.  She enjoys her safety too much and doesn't like change.

While I found the first book to be somewhat cheesy at times, I felt like there was more cheese this time.  I think that I gagged my way through some of the more cheesy moments because I was waiting to see what happened with the grandmother and her lost love.  I have to admit that the flow seemed better in this book compared to the first one and it wasn't totally horrible.  There's going to be another Smitten book coming out in January 2014.  I suppose if it popped up for free, I might pick it up, but I won't be tracking it.  This might be the end of the road for me and the town of Smitten.