Member Reviews

This was an adorably cute David versus Goliath. Katie is up against a large corporation that wants to, in her view, destroy her village to build a luxe hotel. When she commits herself to bringing back a matchmaking festival, the entire town has to come together to try to save itself.
I really liked how all of the characters were fleshed out and much more than just a side character.
It did feel like Katie and Callum fell in love pretty quick, though. They seemed to go from zero to 100 with not much lead up.
Thank you to NetGalley and Catherine Walsh for this ARC.

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⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m a sucker for a cheesy rom com especially when there’s a grumpy MMC but this felt a little more com than rom.

The Matchmaker is a story of a small town in a David Vs Goliath battle with the big guns (a hotel group) with a great focus on community and the love and compassion woven into the bones of small towns.

That being said, I found I wanted more of Callum and Katie, it felt like their relationship felt under developed from the start, as if it snuck into the story and popped up for the occasional chapter, with a title like “The Matchmaker” I’d expected it to be more prominent.
I didn’t feel as invested in their relationship as I usually want from a romance book, instead I was more bothered about the town beating ‘The Man’.

Furthermore, other side characters felt more developed than the mains, and were given backstory and motivation more so than the MMC Callum, I didn’t find myself swooning over him because I didn’t feel like I really knew him, instead I was rooting for other the supporting characters’ romance.

The story is a heartwarming tale of the little guys taking down the big guys, and a small town banding together for the greater good. It was entertaining the one liners and banter was realistic and mostly landed, and Katie’s grandmother now has a firm spot in my heart!

Overall a quick, easy, and enjoyable read about a small Irish town and even though the story was predictable I did enjoy myself, and I am especially fond of Adam now!

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Catherine Walsh for this ARC.

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I love small town stories, and the feeling of community in this book makes my heart happy! It's especially sweet to see how they all get together and work so hard to preserve the essence of their village. The romance is cute, but for me the best part was the the interactions bettween the residents of Ennisbawn and their connection to the village!
Also, I love her granny and wish there was more of her in the story!

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Totally recommend!! Enemies to lovers, Irish folklore. This is an amazing book


I love Catherine Walsh books and this one was no exception!!

Katie Collins hates Callum Dempsey, the man who is building a hideous hotel and destroying her beautiful town Ennisbawn, and on top of that the next project is to tear down the last remaining pub!
She is determined to save it and with it the remaining charm of Ennisbawn! To do it she’s bringing back the once-famous match making festival and love is just around the corner!

Enemies to lovers, Irish folklore, great and entertaining plot!
Go read it the next 18 of April!!

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The Matchmaker is a fast-paced, rom-com!

I read this new novel by Catherine Walsh in a day! She whisks us away to the Irish countryside where we meet Katie Collins, a bartender at Kelly's Pub, a local landmark. Unfortunately, a developer has their sights set on the whole town, including Kelly's and Katie takes on the challenge of saving this staple in her life. Along the way she finds love and brings back the magic of the Matchmaker Festival to her small town.

Three and a half stars for this one! Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC!

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I must have a thing for books set in Ireland! I love the way they talk, their wit and banter. This was a cute book! I smiled the whole time reading it and even had a few laugh out loud moments! The characters are so lovable!! Highly recommend for a fun read!

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What a rollercoaster ride this book was! I went back and forth between giving it 3 stars 0r 4 starts - if I could have given it 3.5 stars, I probably would have done that. This book was an easy read, although at times it felt like there were mini storylines that splintered off. I wrote down notes as I was reading, so I will list them below:

1. Granny is by far my favorite character. Hands down. It was pretty much a sealed deal, but when she went to a funeral to gloat that she outlived someone, that sealed the deal for me.
2. Adam reminds me of Luke from the Gilmore Girls. I called his attraction to Gemma pretty early on, but it was cute seeing that come to be.
4. I thought for sure we were going to have ourselves a Darcy coming out of the pond moment when Katie and Callum were skipping rocks.
5. I was a little taken aback at how quickly we see the attraction that Callum has for Katie, then even more so how quickly the grand gesture happened, which was then followed by drama when Katie found out Jack and Callum are brothers….even though she got over it super quick,
7. The sexual attraction between Callum and Katie also felt like it kind of came out of left field, especially their first sexual encounter.
8. Callum punches Jack…which leads to the power going out….which leads to Callum and Katie having their first night together…which leads to Katie being gone overnight, and finding Granny on the floor. Felt like a lot all within a 24 hour period, and it also felt a little unnecessary.
8. I’m still on the fence as to whether or not we are supposed to be okay with Jack or if we hate him. He did some pretty crappy things, but then spent the entire day with Katie at the hospital.
9. While I completely supported Katie asking Adam for a raise and/or a promotion, it came out of left field - especially when it seemed like she’d had a conversation about it with Callum that the reader wasn’t privy to (unless I missed it somehow).
10. The spice was…okay, at best.

With all of the notes I mentioned above, I will say that I enjoyed the book. It was an easy read, I was able to finish it pretty quickly, and it left me feeling content. This was the first book I have read by this author, and I enjoyed this book enough that I will definitely be looking into reading some of her other books!

**I appreciate so much NetGalley and Bookouture for giving me the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.**

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thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. this was such a cute and fun little romcom. a small town romance will get me every time and this one was no exception. katie was so funny, strong and loveable, an excellent main character! callum was a perfect love interest, he had me giggling and kicking my feet in the air. they just had such palpable chemistry and it was so enjoyable to read. i also really loved all of the side characters and the whole community was just so wholesome. I NEEEED GEMMA AND ADAM'S STORY!

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My rating: 3 stars

This was a solid romance. I liked the relationship between Callum and Katie. I felt like it was genuine and not rushed. There was we not my spicy 🌶️ so if you are looking for something with not so much this would be a good read. It was slower in the beginning but picked up in the middle.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc, I enjoyed this read!

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I read my first Catherine book, Holiday Romance, this past winter and adored it. The hype is so well deserved and everyone who recommended it to me deserves a cupcake. After reading The Matchmaker too, the fangirl in me is here to stay.
Katie is a small town girl and not looking to go anywhere. She loves her rural life tied to her lovely grandmother and the one and only local pub, Kelly's. Big changes are afoot when the church sells property and a luxury hotel and golf course are proposed. Katie isn't up in arms until the noise levels interrupt her sleeping schedule one too many times. Marching down to the construction site in her pajamas and face mask is necessary to her sanity but meeting Callum in said attire is mortifying.
This is one of those books that I hated to put down. Both Katie and Callum are lovable MCs and that guy had some swoony comments that made me all aflutter. Catherine really knows how to develop the chemistry and romance in the perfect way for me as a reader.
Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts in this review are my own and this book releases 04.18.2023.

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My first Catherine Walsh book and it definitely did not disappoint! I decided to request this on netgalley as I had seen a couple of other Irish bookstagrammers chatting about it and I thought the synopsis sounded great. Romance is a genre I don't pick up too often but I am so glad I did with this book as I thoroughly enjoyed it and binge-read it in two sittings. I definitely will be picking up more of Catherine Walsh's books after this!

I found the matchmaker to be a heartwarming comfort book that I couldn't get enough of. I loved the characters throughout and especially loved the friends of the main character Katie, I would have loved to see more of them too! I found Katie hilarious throughout and I loved her character and spirit of not giving up on what she believed in. Her relationship with her grandmother was lovely, and also the grandmother was hilarious with her wit. The small town setting of Ennisbawn was brilliant and Walsh does an excellent job at describing small towns and what the people in these areas can be like. For me especially I loved the dynamic between Katie and Calum and the will they/won't they get together, their chemistry was excellent.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and it has definitely made me want to pick up more of Catherine Walsh's work! I would definitely recommend if you want a quick heartwarming read.

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This was my first time reading a Catherine Walsh book. It was a lovely Irish small town romance, filled with fun characters, including our plucky heroine Katie who is out to save the hometown pub from developers, and the hero Callum who is one of those developers.
It's a fun story, the includes a Matchmaking festival, which sounded so amazing.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bookoture for the ARC.

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Cute little romance novel set in a small Irish town where a girl is trying to save her loved pub from a building conglomerate trying to take over. But of course a handsome man working for the enemy has to come around.

It was a very fluffy book and I fell in love with the town but the romance was quite predictable, too easy a journey and equally too fast and slow at the same time.

Overall an easy read and is nice to break up some more intense reads.

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I love books like this soooo much. i love how their relationship started off and evolved, and how caring he was to her ahhh!!!! i cant wait to read more from the author.

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When a new construction project starts tearing through the quiet town of Ennisbawn, disrupting her precious sleep, Katie Collins is determined to do something to stop it. So when an angry conversation with the head of the project leads to her having to revive the historical matchmaking festival the town used to be known for, the entire community comes together to make it happen.

After having really enjoyed Holiday Romance by Catherine Walsh last year, this was one I was really excited for. And, if I'm being honest, I loved a lot of the same things in this book - this was fun, filled with believable banter and funny one-liners, the atmosphere was lovely, making me feel like I was in Ennisbawn as well and the overarching plot was interesting enough to keep me coming back to this book. I also really loved the community feel in this book; I adore books featuring the concept of a whole community coming together with a joint purpose, and this was a perfect example of that.

However, there were some aspects where The Matchmaker fell flat for me. First of all, while some of the side characters were well developed and I cared a lot about them, others felt like fillers and I struggled to remember who they were when their name came up on the page. Most importantly, though... I really didn't care about the romance. This felt like it was supposed to be an enemies to lovers, but the initial tension just wasn't here. But the development of the main characters' relationship wasn't there much either; it felt quite insta-lovey, which really isn't for me.

All in all, this is an entertaining story about a community coming together to fight the big bag corporation that wants to ruin their small town. And I really loved that part. But in a rom-com, I'm expecting to also be invested in the romance part, and unfortunately I just wasn't.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with an ARC for this title.

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This was a super cute small town romance. The characters were sweet and heartwarming.

The writer did a great job with keeping it fun. I even caught myself laughing several times, which is always a huge plus while reading.

The character development was great as well. Great storyline and easy to follow.

I would totally recommend for a light, quick read.

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Many thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A really cute book with an awesome beginning that really made me chuckle. Unfortunately, the second half really slowed down and wasn’t nearly as funny. Still a cute read though.

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I've already read the author before, so I was hoping this new one with keep up with my expectations and it did.

Katie and Callum start off on the wrong foot over the noise construction in her small village, but soon
they keep bumping into each other.

Things escalate when the pub where she works is in peril, and Katie decides to revive a matchmaking festival to bring publicity to their cause.

The small village setting, with the pros and cons that come with it, was well done and I liked it, along with the characters.

I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.

Some explicit scenes and language.

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The Matchmaker is a win in my book. Super cute!!!! Smiles from the first page until the last. Devoured in 2 sittings! 4 out of 5 stars for me.

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The match maker has made its mark on me! Laughing out loud in public is why reading a book is one of my favorite past times. The love story between these two kept me on my toes and made me smile way too many times. Throughly enjoyed this lovely book and can’t wait to see more from this author! The Irish background made it all the more entertaining. Though sometimes the romance was predictable, it was still such a cute read.

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