Couldn’t get into it as I didn’t really gel with the characters so I gave up 20% of the way through and this was a DNF for me

This winter I read and fell in love with Catherine Walsh’s Holiday Romance. So when I saw her newest book, I knew I needed it. And it had everything I loved about Holiday Romance - Ireland setting, hilarious banter, perfect side characters.

Short Synopsis:
Katie loves her small country town in Ireland. But when a developer shows up to not only build a hotel and golf course in town, but to also tear down the bar she has worked at for the past decade, she loses her cool and does everything in her power to save it. But unfortunately the project manager is a bit sexy…I mean distracting.

My Thoughts:
This was such a fun and quick read. I picked it up on Saint Patrick’s Day and it was so fun to live in this Ireland town for the day! I was laughing one minute, swooning the next. This was just such a fun romance.

Read if You Like:
💖 Funny Banter
💖 Tattooed Men
💖 Ireland
💖 Quirky grandmas
💖 Friendship goals

I enjoyed this reading far more than I had expected. It’s a quick and easy read. 

Katie is a heart driven woman who know what she wants and know how to get it. She’s funny, loving and cares deeply about everyone around her. 

Her peace is disturbed when a big construction is taking place right in front of her house in a small and forgotten town in Ireland. One day, tired of having to wake up at 7am with blasting noises of trucks and construction, she paces right through the site and meets Callum Dempsey, handsome and disturber of peace. 

Callum is instantly captured by Katie’s stubbornness, and when he meets her, he realizes that everything he wanted and dreamed was right there in Ennisbawn. 

Their chemistry is off the charts, funny and lighthearted. The side characters was just as loving, Nush and Gemma are the best friends a girl can have.

Another 2023 anticipated read that fell short. The book is brought down by the romance's insta-love and then no subsequent development; almost half-way through the book and I still didn't know why they liked each other...On the upside, Catherine Walsh is funny no matter what she writes, and I'll always have "Holiday Romance."

This book was so cute! Katherine Walsh has a way with words and humor makes me laugh out loud. Callum was swoon worthy. I loved Katie’s grandma - she made me laugh. Love me a good small town romance.

Thank you NetGalley for eARC in exchange for an honest review

The Matchmaker: very cute and charming, enemies to lovers romance with some genuine laugh out loud moments. This is like a Hallmark movie set in small town Ireland, but gender swapped and told from the perspective of the small town woman. Excellent side characters and secondary story lines. Mild-moderate steam. My only complaint with this book is that it was a little insta-lovey. I’m not sure why they fell for each other besides being hot?

I’m sorry to have to rate this a 3! It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t have me swooning. In fact, at parts when I should’ve been really tuned into their love story, I found myself feeling awkward and needing to take breaks from reading. Agh. Not what you want from a romance.

I found Callum overly possessive and maybe I just don’t think that’s sexy the way I did when I was younger and less confident and more naive? Or maybe it was written in a way that made it seem more controlling than hot, idk. He’s also ready to drop everything and move to a tiny podunk town for her like within weeks of knowing her which is just…not believable? Katie is also not very engaging as a character maybe? She cares about her town, and her grandma, and she loves bartending. She has no interest in ever leaving her village (even to travel??? Not to move there, but just…visit??) or doing anything more than what she’s doing (she wants to be a bartender forever) which is fine, and absolutely no hate towards bartenders, but it made her…not super relatable to me. Their dialogue was kind of icky/eyerolly at times.

Also, and I know this will likely be corrected, but there were more typos/word swaps (e.g. “her” instead of “here”) than I’ve ever noticed before in an arc. It was to the point of being distracting to me. I’m not docking a star for this because I know the book will go through more rounds of edits, but it felt lazy and didn’t ~improve~ my feelings on the book.

I really liked the overall premise and the side characters and the setting! The MC’s and their love story just didn’t do it for me. I really liked Holiday Romance so I was hoping to like this as much/more! :(

3.5/5 stars, rounded down. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review

A new romcom favorite!

This book entirely delivered on everything I want from romcoms; it is light-hearted, escapist fiction at its most fun. From the first chapter, I absolutely loved Katie and Callum’s dynamic. They are whip-smart and fun, and their banter is just adorable and laugh-out-loud funny. The plot line with the town’s Matchmaking festival was a fresh twist on the ‘save the small town’ trope, and the ending was just *chef’s kiss*.

Highly recommend for lovers of Emily Henry and Christina Lauren!

Abundantly grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

-A

After falling in love with Holiday Romance back in December and reading a synopsis that sounded right up my alley, I was super excited to pick up Walsh’s newest book!

Unfortunately, this one missed the mark for me! Although I found the small-town vibes and the quirky characters quite endearing the story moved too slowly for me to stay invested! I wish there had been a little less “will they, won’t they” between Katie and Callum and more substance to the building of the Matchmaker festival storyline!

I really do enjoy Walsh’s style of writing though and will continue to read more of her backlist!

Publication date: 18/4/2023

This storyline was a bit slow to read and i almost dnf'ed it. I'm sorry! 😞 But i love Katie's sassy grandmother!

I received this eArc from netgalley bookouture in exchange for my honest review.

I picked this one up on the basis of the cover - it screamed rom com to me, and after reading the blurb, I had a pretty good feeling that I was going to enjoy it. It's a heartwarming, well written story about a quirky young woman who takes on greedy developers set on destroying her small Irish village as she knows and loves it.

I liked that the story had a serious side and that it wasn't all focused on the love interest. The meet cute is super cute, and I enjoyed the touch of enemies to lovers vibe, albeit those vibes mostly coming from the protagonist, Katie. Katie, her friends and her family are all likeable charcters, and the banter is great between them and not overdone. I especially enjoyed the relationship between her and her sassy Granny.

There is a gorgeous sex scene and there are also some really nice romantic moments and quotes too. And there's a scene in the barn when the girls talking about match making which is hilarious.

This was a quick read, nice, short-length chapters, and clean, solid writing, and I thoruoughly enjoyed it. The only thing that would have elevated this to a five star was a bit more time given for the tension between the will they won't they to develop, and maybe a few more laugh out loud moments. I bought one of the author's other novels based on this read, and I'll definitely pick up future publications by her!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An Irish love story-just in time for ☘️ St. Patty’s Day!

Katie Collins isn’t going to let the fact that she is still wearing pajamas which feature yellow ducks in rain jackets stop her!!

She needs to confront the managing director of Glenmill-the company that is destroying her sleepy Irish town of Ennisbawn, one building at a time, and it just CAN’T wait.

You would think that the visitors of the soon-to-be Ennisbawn Hotel and Golf Club, would want to at least have one authentic Village Pub to visit, during their stay.

But the developers seem determined to eliminate Kelly’s Pub, despite the fact that it’s the kind of building that you see on postcards or tourist adverts, with whitewashed stone walls, and bright red windowpanes. Inside has dozens of cozy nooks for two and larger booths for groups to gather in. There is no television or karaoke-just conversation and a sense of community, served up with salty soups and cheese toasties, by Katie and her boss, Adam.

The most charming feature of all is the WISHING WELL, out back, overlooking the lake.

Legend has it that people would drop a coin down the well and wish for true love, dating back to the late seventeen hundreds. And, one of the town’s oldest traditions was a matchmaking festival, held by this well, year after year.

Katie’s parents met that way, their initials carved into the stone-and it’s the only thing she has left of them after losing them to a tragic car accident when she was just nine years old.

She isn’t about to let Kelly’s Pub or the well get destroyed without a fight.

Can she and her determined friends use the festival to save the Pub?

After “Holiday Romance” made my favorites list last year, I was hoping that this book would possess that same magic!! But, unfortunately despite the charming locale and premise, it didn’t quite measure up.

Katie and her friends were likable, and there was definitely chemistry between Katie and Callum (the leading man) BUT- their romance was too “Insta Love” for my tastes-too much like a “Hallmark movie” this time, for me.

I fell “IN LOVE” with Kelly’s Pub and Ennisbawn, Ireland.
I only ”LIKED” the romance element of the story.
3.5 ⭐️

AVAILABLE April 18, 2023.

A buddy read with DeAnn. Was she more enamored by this one? Be sure to check out her review!

Thank You to Bookouture for the gifted copy provided through NetGalley. It was my pleasure to offer a candid review!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It took me on a roller coaster of emotions and kept me wanting to read more.

Don’t go into this book expecting it to be a typical romance. Yes there is a romance, but it’s not very central to the story. This book takes on some bigger themes and brings bigger emotions than I was expecting. The romance lacks some of the tension I would have hoped for, but the overall story makes up for that.

I don’t think Katie’s character was fleshed out quite enough. I never felt like I truly knew what she wanted or how she felt. I couldn’t tell in a lot of ways if she even knew what she wanted or if she was an inherent people pleaser.

By far the best part of this book was the small town charm and the fun side characters. I’m always a sucker for an underdog story, and this was a great one. Overall a very good story about a small town going up against a big company trying to take their land and businesses with a side story romance.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this story of village life, where nothing much really happens until the developers move in. Then everything is threatened. The characters are great and I wouldn't mind a catch up with them. A well written believable book, which made me smile.

I LOVED THIS BOOK!
It was amazing from start to finish. From the very first chapter i was completely hooked. I love Katie and the entire cast of characters, at the end i felt like i was a part of the community. And Callum??? Absolutely perfect. A true gentleman and Katie’s one and only march. I loved the writing style and the comedic bits. Truly an amazing book.

Thanks for Netgalley and Bookouture for this ARC.

Katie lives in (and loves) her small home town village of Ennisbawn. When a development team threatens to destroy a beloved local landmark, Katie springs into action. She decides to revive the matchmaking festival to save the pub, but she doesn’t expect Callum – the project manager for the development team – and the connection they find together. Will this matchmaker find herself a match?

I really expected to love this, after reading Holiday Romance by the same author. Unfortunately, this just fell flat for me. The storyline dragged, not much happened, and I found myself... bored (I’m sorry!). I enjoyed the enemies-to-lovers aspect of this, and some of the side characters were fun.

This was a very predictable book but it was a very quick read and I still enjoyed myself. I always love reading about a small town like Ennisbawn so I really loved that aspect. Overall. I don’t think it was the most creative and I wasn’t overly invested in the main romance but I was able to get through it without struggle.

Catherine Walsh's Holiday Romance was one of my favorite reads of 2022 so I was very excited to get my hands on her next release. The Matchmaker was an entertaining read but I didn't find the chemistry between Katie and Callum as captivating as I was hoping it would be.

The Matchmaker is a small-town romance with a bit of enemies to lovers in the mix. Katie and Callum have an adorable meet cute when Katie marches into a construction site that Callum is managing demanding that they keep it down so she can get some sleep. To save her small town from the big bad developers, Katie decides to revitalize the town's matchmaking festival.

There were a lot of threads in this book and not all of them got tied up by the end of the book. I wanted a little more development of the relationship between Callum and Katie - it wasn't ever clear that they really got to know each other. I enjoyed the side characters and the camaraderie of a small-town cast of characters.

Content warnings: Katie's parents died in a car accident and she has anxiety riding in cars/driving including an on page panic attack in a vehicle.

I voluntarily reviewed an early copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This charming story is full of small Irish village life with Katie, the feisty FMC taking on the developers building a country house hotel in her tiny village as she forms a bond with Callum, one of the developer’s team. Walsh’s books often have a cast of local characters, a slightly twisty plot and a slow burn. For lovers of Mhairi Mcfarlane, this is charming, a little bit steamy and a very satisfying read. I thoroughly recommend!

Thanks very much to NetGalley and publishers Bookouture for the ARC.

Catherine Walsh could write a grocery list and I would sign up for an advance copy.

There were certainly sweet moments between Katie and Callum but I do think this was more of a story about small town community than it was a romance.

This was a lovely, well-written story by any other standard, but it wasn't my favorite compared to other books Walsh has written.