REVIEW: Match Me If You Can by Michele Gorman

Title: Match Me If You Can
Author: Michele Gorman
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: January 2016
Genre: Chick-Lit
Buy The Book: Amazon

Description: Ever thought about recycling your ex?

Best friends Catherine, Rachel & Sarah are fun, smart, successful and single – just like millions of women with a low tolerance for idiocy in their dates.

Mr. Right hasn't turned up yet, and Mr. Right-Now isn't worth booking a wax appointment for. So, when Catherine, London’s finest matchmaker, gets Rachel and Sarah to join her dating site where they can recycle their ex-boyfriends in exchange for an upgrade, they soon realize that anything could happen . . .

Three best friends, proving that sometimes it really isn't you…it's him.

My Thoughts: Enjoyable story about three best friends and housemates, Catherine, Rachel and Sarah who are all searching for Mr. Right. Catherine convinces Rachel and Sarah to join the dating site she owns with her ex-husband. The interesting catch to joining this site is in order to sign up, you have to bring your ex along and they have to sign up as well. I found the idea of “recycling” your ex for an upgrade to be very intriguing.

I liked these women and enjoyed their different personalities and quirks from Catherine’s nearly A-type personality and coping with her ex-husband getting remarried, to Rachel’s determination and drive as an architect trying to win a competition for her drawing to be chosen by the firm’s biggest client, to Sarah who designs greeting cards, loves to bake and worries about finding a new care home for her sixteen-year-old sister with Down’s Syndrome.

I was rooting for all of these women to succeed not only in the romance department, but also in their chosen professions. I did find myself getting annoyed at the building crew who seemed to be tearing up the house more than remodeling it, but I always get nervous when someone is knocking holes into walls.

Michele Gorman is an author I have always enjoyed reading. She writes characters that are easy to relate to and care about with unique stories that entertain without being cookie-cutter.

My Final Verdict: Readers who enjoy laugh aloud moments with romance to ease the burdens of the daily grind of life and career should pick this one up.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of Match Me If You Can from the author in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: If Only by Angela Marsons

Title: If Only
Author: Angela Marsons
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: July 2021
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible

Description: Find love. Have a baby. Ditch the mother-in-law from hell. Three best friends, each wishing for the one thing they want the most. But what if they’re searching for happiness in all the wrong places?

Cher is head over heels for her new boss. He’s gorgeous, smart and funny but he barely even notices her except to ask for a coffee refill. How can she get him to see that she’s the perfect girl for him?

Sarah is longing for a baby with the man she loves. The only trouble is David is already married. Will he finally leave his wife so they can be together?

Deb should be looking forward to her wedding with lovely fiancé Mark but with her mother-in-law from hell Margie taking control of everything, will her dream day turn into her worst nightmare?

So, when one summer evening, over several glasses of wine, Cher, Sarah and Deb stumble across an old book on Sarah’s shelf and drunkenly decide to cast a wishing spell, they don’t think for one minute that it will come true. It’s just three best friends having a laugh and throwing some herbs around the garden. Or is it?

My Thoughts: If Only by new to me author Angela Marsons was a breath of fresh air for me. I was quickly drawn into this story of three women who have been the best of friends for ages get together over several glasses of wine to commiserate the misery of their lives. Cher is in love with her boss, who is a tool and barely acknowledges her existence. Sarah has been seeing a married man for five years and longs for a baby, thinking it will bind him to her forever. Deb is in the middle of wedding planning hell with her future mother-in-law trying to control every aspect of the nuptials and was the cause of the last two attempts to be postponed.

Do you know what they say about not making important decisions while under the influence? That goes for casting wish spells too. After finding a book about casting spells on Sarah’s bookshelf, they decide to try it. Cher wishes for her boss to fall in love with her, Sarah wishes to have David’s child and Deb wishes her fiancé’s mother would disappear. I say be careful of what you wish. Your wish may be granted, but not in the way you are expecting.

What follows is a story I found difficult to put down. I truly liked these women and cared about their lives and with what they were dealing. I could be friends with these women. I had a bit of a struggle with Sarah dating a married man but she isn’t the type of man-stealing femme fatale character I usually think of when I envision the “other woman.” I’ve never been a fan of the adultery plot device, but the author writes it so well that it garnered more empathy from me for Sarah than I normally would feel.

The chapters skip between each of the women, giving me the sense that I was a part of the story, present with each of them as friends would be, with laughter and sympathy for what they are going through. Isn’t that what life is all about? Surrounding yourself with the people you care about the most who are there ready to celebrate your victories and mourn your losses with you, with or without wine, is the best way to live.

My Final Verdict: I highly recommend this book to readers who love stories that draw on their emotions from laughing to righteous indignation to tears. I listened to the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed the narrator’s voice and the personality that shines through the characters. I doubt I would have enjoyed it as well if I had read it in my own voice.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of If Only from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: What a Dog Knows by Susan Wilson

Title: What a Dog Knows
Author: Susan Wilson
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: June 2021
Genre: General Fiction
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible

Description: From New York Times bestselling author Susan Wilson comes What a Dog Knows, another heartwarming novel about humans and the dogs that change our lives.

Ruby Heartwood has always lived a life on the move. As a traveling psychic, she makes her living working at carnivals and festivals and circuses around New England. It's a life Ruby has made peace with--settling in one place has never been for her. She needs no one, and no one needs her.

Until one night, when she is camped by the side of the road in her trusty Volkswagen Westie van, a fierce thunder and lightning storm erupts. In the middle of the downpour, she hears a distinct voice telling her to let me in. In jumps a little black and white dog, and to Ruby's astonishment, she can hear the dog's thoughts. Has she been struck by lightning? Did the storm do this? Is she losing her mind?

It turns out, Ruby can hear many dogs' thoughts. She decides to set up semi-permanent residency in the town of Harmony Farms, until she can sort out what is going on, and who the little dog, Hitch, belongs to. But some people in Harmony Farms don't want her there. And it seems that events keep preventing Ruby from leaving. What secrets is this town keeping? Why was she meant to find this dog? And what has Ruby really been running from, all these years?

My Thoughts: New to me author Susan Wilson pens a delightful and heartwarming tale about two lost souls who find their way to one another. One is traveling psychic, Ruby Heartwood and the other is a stray dog she calls The Hitchhiker, or Hitch for short. What makes this story all the more interesting and intriguing is Ruby and Hitch can communicate. Ruby hears the dog’s thoughts as clearly as she can hear her own and this opens a door for Ruby to communicate with other animals. Ruby decides to stick around the small town of Harmony Farms for a while longer than she normally would to explore this new addition to her psychic abilities and soon learns that home is much closer to her heart than the physical geography of the location.

I really liked Ruby and felt great empathy for the life she has lived, starting as an abandoned baby growing up in a convent, trying to come to terms with the ability to foresee future events and trying to help those these events affect, even though it isn’t always accepted or received by everyone around her. As a result, Ruby runs away and makes her way in the world surviving horrific events and struggling to raise a child on her own. This woman is a survivor in every sense of the word and having to rely on herself for her entire life has not hardened or embittered Ruby. She has a heart of gold that is shown in how she treats the people she meets in Harmony Farms.

The locale of this book is nearly as engaging as Ruby was. There are several secondary characters that bring a lot of vibrancy and charm to the story, both animal and human. Ruby doesn’t stay long in one place and though the reader has full disclosure of Ruby’s reasons for wanting to move on, I secretly harbored Hitch’s desire that they stay. I especially enjoyed the scenes where Ruby is giving a reading to help an animal’s owner identify a behavioral problem and hearing it from the animal’s point of view was equal parts refreshing and entertaining.

I listened to the audiobook and very much enjoyed the pace of the narration and the various voices and accents she used for both the human and animal characters.

My Final Verdict: Readers who enjoy stories that are relationship driven will enjoy this book quite a bit as this story abounds with relationships. Friendships, adversarial relationships, romantic relationships, family relationships and the special relationships we have with our pets and animals are all present in this book. I highly recommend this book to all readers who enjoy stories that feature animals and the lessons they teach us.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of What a Dog Knows from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.