Adult Review – Skipping Winter – anthology

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West, Candace,  Sara Davison, Angela D. Meyer, Deb Elkink, Eleanor Bertin, and Stacy Monson. Skipping Winter: Stories of Light in a Dark World. Minneapolis, MN: The Mosaic Collection. 2025

Summary

What happens when the troubles you leave behind—along with the winter weather—tag along on your journey like sneaky little stowaways?

Whether the women and men in these stories are abandoning the warmth of the south to head into a blizzard or escaping cold and snow to seek solace in desert or tropical paradise, what awaits them is definitely not what they expect.

But could it be exactly what they need?

❁ Valor Passage – Candace West

Chelsea Thatcher’s idea of skipping a Deep South winter is racing toward a blizzard in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. After all, what is better than holing up in a cabin with family, hot chocolate, cinnamon rolls, books, and an unwelcome guest concealing unfinished business in a pillowcase?

❁ Only the Ocean Knows – Sara Davison

Alain Temauri is desperate to leave the cold, dreary weather behind, along with memories of the girlfriend who broke his heart when she walked away. Last year, his younger brother Rav’s trip to Tahiti, their parents’ birthplace, changed his life. Could it do the same for Alain?

❁ Pause That Thought – Angela D. Meyer

Betsy is facing the change of life, struggling to navigate wayward emotions and regulate her personal summers in the middle of winter. Then, one particularly bad ice storm sets her on her derriere, and she decides she’s had enough. With her boyfriend taking a break from their relationship, Betsy teams up with a friend to escape the hostile terrain of winter. Perhaps life will be better in paradise.

❁ Adrift – Deb Elkink

Kallum MacVicar, wetting his feet in academics, volunteers for a month-long teaching stint at a mission school on a tropical island, avoiding a harsh Canadian winter while earning college credit. He meets local Bahamian beauty Samara Hanson, who is eager to swim on her own but is flirting with personal disaster. Are Kallum and Samara in over their heads?

❁ L’il Trip to Paradise – Eleanor Bertin

Sun, surf, and sumptuous buffets. For two years, family drama and responsibilities have kept Holly and Shawn from returning to their favorite tropical paradise. Now, nothing sounds better than leaving it all behind to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in Costa Rica. When a freak medical emergency overturns their vacation, Holly is blindsided by an even freakier change in her husband, threatening everything they’ve built together. 

❁ The Butterfly Sisters – Stacy Monson

Dorthea loves yoga, flowing ensembles of wild colors, and marching to her own drummer. Trixie has spent her life happily in the shadow of the husband she adored; she prefers order and staying in the background. Aside from having the widow title, what wouc they possibly have in common?

Skipping Winter is a collection of six stories about wandering through darkness and finding light in the most surprising of places.

My Adult Review

One of the things I enjoy about these anthologies from the Mosaic Collection authors is that they often use these stories to expand the stories of minor characters in previous books or introduce new characters you end up wanting to know more about. 

Another thing I enjoy is that there is usually at least one story in the anthology that I can directly relate to or entices me to try something different. This time they re-ignited my desire to travel to new destinations. They introuced me to Tahiti, Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Hawaii as destinations I’ve never been to. I have been to North Carolina but not for many years. Arizona – well, I live in New Mexico so I do get to Arizona on occasion. I do love the thought of traveling to warm destinations when it is cold outside. 

The stories are all well-written. I love that all the authors had a different spin on skipping winter – including some surprising ones. All of the stories left me wanting to have another story about the characters. 

The Mosaic Collection authors always create stories that I enjoy – I look forward to reading whatever they have coming next. 

This anthology is written for the adult audience. The stories are appropriate for the K-12 Christian school library but not all the themes will appeal to that audience.

I received a complimentary copy of Skipping Winter. This is my honest review. 

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