Soul Sisters at Cedar Mountain Lodge (Tess Thompson) Books in Order

Tess Thompson's contributions to Soul Sisters at Cedar Mountain Lodge sit at two important points in the shared story. She helps lay the emotional groundwork in Christmas Sisters, and then she picks up one of the sisters, Alissa, years later in Christmas Rings and Christmas Star. That gives her corner of the series a nice shape. You get both the beginning of the family and one grown-up branch of what that family becomes.

The heart of it is still Maddie Kirby.

In Christmas Sisters, Maddie is reeling after the loss of her husband and only child when she ends up caring for four girls who have lost their own mothers. The setup is sad, but the point is not misery. It is the decision to keep loving anyway. Maddie offers safety first, then steadiness, then a home. That choice becomes the emotional engine for everything that follows in the wider series.

Thompson's later books focus on Alissa as an adult, and that shift changes the tone without breaking the thread. In Christmas Rings, Alissa is no longer the fragile child from the origin story. She is a kindergarten teacher trying to build a future with Jed Marsh, even while class differences, family judgment, and public embarrassment threaten to knock the wedding off course. The conflict is romantic, yes, but it is also about whether the family Maddie built can still be the place that helps one of her daughters stand back up.

That matters because Thompson is especially interested in how old wounds linger into adult life. Her characters are often kind people who still carry shame, grief, or fear. In this series, the Christmas setting sharpens all of that. The lights, the lodge, the return to shared traditions, they make everything feel more tender and a little more exposed. A holiday wedding or family reunion is never just an event. It is also a test of memory, loyalty, and belonging.

By Christmas Star, Alissa and Jed are married and dealing with the next season of life, work, pressure from his family, babies, dogs, and the ordinary chaos that comes after the wedding glow fades. That is part of the charm of Thompson's entries. She does not stop at the first happy ending. She likes to show what comes after, when love becomes daily life and people still have to choose one another.

Expect warmth, but not fluff.

These books are best for readers who like found family, holiday atmosphere, and romances with a strong domestic center. The larger Soul Sisters world gives them extra resonance, but Thompson's pieces are easy to follow on their own. They are about the family created in grief, the woman who made it possible, and one daughter learning that being loved well as a child can still shape the life she builds as an adult.