'Night of Miracles' is the second novel in the Arthur Truluv series by Elizabeth Berg. If you haven't read the first one I highly recommend you go get yourself a copy to read and then come back to this. It's a wonderful read as stand-alone but the story that comes before it is so sweet and gives a bit more background for some of the characters in the novel that you're truly missing out if you don't read that too.


This story was touching and sweet, yet also sad and thoughtful at times. It contains true-life life events and situations and it makes you think a bit about your mortality and the legacy you leave behind. A wonderful women's fiction novel for anyone that enjoys a touching story about life.

Before you read this book, I suggest you read The Story of Arthur Truluv as it sets up the story for a few of the characters. I didn't realize Night of Miracles was the sequel and I felt I may have enjoyed the book better. I received the ARC of this book through Netgalley and Random House.

Lucille is a retired school teacher who is getting up there in years. To keep busy she holds baking classes for the residents of Mason, including some children's baking class. She receives some unexpected help in the form of Iris, new to Mason after leaving an unfulfilling marriage. Iris, though she doesn't need a job, knows she needs to keep busy. She can only sit around her apartment for so long without becoming bored. She'd also like to meet new people. She happens upon Lucille through a baking class and offers her marketing expertise to Lucille. Lucille often dreams of her beloved Frank, a man she truly loved but never got a chance to marry when he died suddenly. She dreams often of him but isn't quite ready to join him in the hereafter. Night of Miracles projects you into the lives of Lucille, Iris, and a host of other characters.

While I did enjoy this book, I didn't love it. I really wanted to see the relationships between the characters develop more, particularly between Tiny and Monica.
I felt as though the story seemed a little rushed and it seemed like there were too many characters. There wasn't enough time to get to know them better. Tiny and Monica's romance though quirky and ill-timed (as all good romances are), seemed a little rushed. I really fell in love with Tiny and wanted to know more about him. The same goes for Abby and Jason. Abby's illness also felt rushed and incomplete.

Overall a lovely book and an enjoyable read.

Elizabeth Berg is among my favorite authors because she writes from the heart. Her latest, "Night of Miracles," is yet another example of what happens when a writer creates inspiring characters.

The novel is the sequel to "The Story of Arthur Truluv," a love story with twists, but it can stand on its own as an inspirational tale of hope, redemption and commitment. Set in a fictional Missouri town, it's the story of Lucille, an 88-year-old baker extraordinaire and spitfire. She keeps an eye on the comings and goings next door where Arthur once lived, but now occupied by a young couple and their 10-year-old son.

Did I mention Lucille is an outstanding baker? She gives baking lessons in her home, and supplies Polly's Henhouse restaurant with delicacies. The baked goods are a favorite of Tiny, a cab driver who is in love with a waitress named Monica. The pair are working towards a relationship when Iris, a Boston divorcee with personal issues, comes to town.

Berg's novel has a full cast of characters, and each one is finely detailed and intricate. There's love, illness, thanksgiving, death, but most importantly, compassion and hope all woven into this fictional tapestry. And together, these colorful characters make up a community where we all would enjoy saying "Hi, neighbor."

ARC provided by NetGalley

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a sweet book. A sequel to Arthur Truluv, this story continues with Lucille, and her baking business. She hires an assistant because she needs the help as she is getting on in her old age.

Iris is her assistant who is friends with Tiny, who is in love with Monica (great storyline here).

We can't forget Maddy and her little girl, Nola, who have become like grandchildren to Lucille.

I recommend this to anyone that has read Arthur Truluv! If you didn't read it, I highly recommend reading it before reading Night of Miracles. Lovely story!

Delightful, feel good book sure to delight readers. It’s a follow up book, but it stands strong on its own. Berg is a pure delight.

Can I just say how I wish I could live in this book? What an amazing read about community, friendship and just coming together for people. I wish I could sit and learn to bake with Lucille, the kind and grandmotherly type of lady. Its filled with sadness, heartache and enough good moments that make you believe in good wholesome friendships again. Elizabeth Berg's books never disappoint this girl. Phenomenal read and probably her best book to date!

I received this book in exchange for a review. This book is a continuation of the book The Story of Arthur Truluv. Although you don’t have to read the first book to be able to enjoy this book I would recommend that you read them both in order. This is a nice book to read and relax. There is not a lot that you have to think about and keep track of while reading. Just sit back and enjoy!

Random House and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Night of Miracles. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Night of Miracles returns to the world created by author Elizabeth Berg in The Story of Arthur Truluv. Lucille Howard is carrying on without her friend, teaching widely popular baking classes and helping her neighbors in their time of crisis. She has drawn to her a small group of loyal friends, like Iris, who is new to town and becomes invaluable to Lucille. Although Lucille is the center, others in her world give their perspectives on how she has affected everyone she meets.

Author Elizabeth Berg has captured the charm of The Story of Arthur Truluv, with its bittersweet story and well developed characters. I was pleased to see Lucille take center stage in Night of Miracles, as I felt that her story was not finished at the end of the first book. Although this is not strictly a sequel, readers who are new to Mason, Missouri and the lives of its inhabitants would be better served to read the aforementioned novel first. Other familiar characters make their brief appearances, but the new characters to the book give it life. I especially liked Iris, as she navigates her new path in life. Despite being tinged with sadness, Night of Miracles has a sense of hope to it and is mainly uplifting. I would highly recommend this novel and I look forward to more by this author in the future.

Charming and sweet mixed with some sad and some happy - just like real life - this was a great followup to The Story of Arthur Truluv. The characters really come to life on the page. I enjoyed this quick, feel-good read!

This sweet (pun intended) book is about four women leading very different lives and how their lives are interlinked. After reading this book I found out that it’s actually the second book in a series. However it can be read as a single book as well. The author gives you enough back story to read it without feeling lost.
I LOVE Lucille’s baking classes and Lucille herself. The story itself is so simple and yet so intriguing. It is beautifully written and makes me want to read more of Elizabeth’s books.

It is not necessary to read Elizabeth Berg's earlier work, "The Story of Arthur Truluv," to enjoy this book, but they make a wonderful pairing. I read them back to back. "Arthur Truluv" is part of the backstory for "Night of Miracles," with Lucille, Maddie, and her daughter, as carryover characters. "Night of Miracles" introduces Iris, Abby (and her family), Tiny, and Monica, people of varying ages and circumstances, whose stories are told in separate chapters, ultimately coming together with Lucille as their common denominator. "Night of Miracles" is a straightforward feel-good story, told without syrupy sentimentality. Highly recommended.

Continuing from ‘The Story of Arthur Truluv’, Elizabeth Berg recreates her magic with Lucille’s story. Now living in Arthur’s home and teaching the love of baking from her kitchen, she has found her place. Startled awake by an unknown visitor, Lucille has come face to face with her own Angel of Death. She is not ready and asks for more time since she has not yet received her miracle and a person cannot die without first receiving a miracle.

There is a sub-plot involving Monica, a waitress at the local diner, and her crush on a customer, but that part of the story did not grasp me as much as Lucille and the thwarting of her nightly visitor, and Iris, who is restarting her life in a small town as Lucille’s assistant. Both women grate on each other from time to time, but that is how great friendships start so I was intrigued by this interaction.

What did twist the heartstrings was the family across the street and a sudden diagnosis and how a family can be pulled and tugged but will always finds their way back to what is important. Even if the family sees sugar as poison and Lucille, a semi-reluctant babysitter, decides to share her creations and perhaps a miracle with a family that needs a little of both.

Each person reading this will come away with a different feeling for which Elizabeth Berg was trying to convey. Is it family, friends, or even baking that brings people together. Does a person’s age, weight, or position in society define them? Is it important who says sorry first or where a person finds a home? Most importantly, does it matter where a person is married? Or do you do the next best that you can and bring the wedding to them?

This is a book of memories, a book of triumphs, and a book of forgiveness.

I just love the people of Mason.
I fell in love with Arthur, Lucille and Maddy in the first book and am so glad to revisit the town and characters.
I laughed and I did shed a tear.
I hope there is a third installment.

This is a beautiful book. It is a story of different people whose lives intertwine. It is one that keeps you reading and is very enjoyable. For fans of "Arthur Truluv" this is a great book. I highly recommend it.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

After enjoying The Story of Arthur Truluv, I was happy to read the sequel. I hoped it would give more heart felt messages on love and loss and it did!
Lucille is pushing forward in life after the loss of her fiancé and her good friend Arthur Truluv. She continues to live in his home and teach baking classes to stay busy. New to this novel are Lucille's neighbors; a family with a father, a young boy and a mother dealing with health crisis; Iris who's moved to small town Macon to heal from a divorce and her inability have children, and finds herself working as Lucille's assistant; and Tiny and Monica who are in love with one another and oblivious it is reciprocated. Maddy, a major character in book one, has a small role this time. This story walks us through tragedy, friendship and love while teaching us to lean on friends.
I would describe Berg's writing style as heartwarming. She creates characters we all relate to and provides an important message while keeping the story simple and lovely. I think the book can be read without reading the Arthur Truluv, but having the background makes it better. Again, I find the story similar to how Fredrik Backman wrote about Ove and then Britt Marie. I find more depth in Backman but enjoy both.

One of the things I initially liked about this book was that the main character Lucille was a realistic 80+ year old woman. She was busy, active (had a cooking school, engaged and interesting. She had some aches and pains, as well as some personality quirks, but she wasn’t a caricature. This is what drew me into the story. Lucille’s adventures and those of her friends and neighbors in her small close-knit community were interesting and kept me reading. There were several stories interwoven with Lucille’s - a soon-to-be marriage, a budding love story, a story of someone looking for a second chance and a family affected by cancer. Perhaps all the stories were too smoothly resolved, including Lucille’s desire to be reunited with Frank, the love of her life, but I enjoyed spending a bit of time in this small-town world. This book appears to be a sequel to The Story of Arthur Truluv and sometimes I felt that I was really missing something by not having read that book, but the author gives enough of a backstory to keep you informed. Ms. Berg does an excellent job with the details of everyday life and I like that. However, overall the book was a little too light and fluffy for my taste - except for the month of December when I need such a book. Thanks to NetGlley for the opportunity to read an eArc of this book.

A sweet heartfelt emotional story with a great cast of characters. I found it to be touching. Another winner by this author.

I received an ARC of Elizabeth Berg's novel Night of Miracles through NetGalley.com. In the little town of Mason, Missouri, readers meet Lucille (an elderly baker who teaches her culinary arts); Tiny (a heavyset taxicab driver); Iris (a middle-aged divorced transplant to Mason); Abby, Jason, and their son Lincoln; and Monica (a lonely diner waitress), and upon entering the community of these characters discover beauty in the mundane. Lucille, a retired teacher in her 80s, fights off the angel of death as long as she can, is the glue that binds these characters together, even though some of them don't meet her until her death. She hires Iris, who is hiding from facing her marriage that failed due to her shattered dreams of having children while her husband did not want the same, to help manage Lucille's baking classes and the two become fast friends. Meanwhile, Tiny and Monica maneuver through misunderstandings as neither can put into words their attraction to and admiration for one another, and Monica mistakes Iris's proximity to Tiny as Tiny's romantic interest in Iris. Further, Lucille babysits Lincoln while Abby and Jason struggle with Abby's diagnosis and treatment of leukemia, but Lucille and Lincoln develop a beautiful friendship as Lincoln matures beyond his years, understanding more of the situation than either of his parents want to acknowledge. Berg crafts characters who are beautiful, testaments to unforeseen friendships forged in a small town, developed in some of the most difficult times in life, and resulting in the deeply lasting relationships most people search for. These characters reveal miracles in the everyday, little graces we bestow on one another that make life seem miraculous. The choices each character makes weave a fabric that is strong enough to protect all the members of this makeshift family. I recommend this beautiful story as a quick, enriching, life-affirming story.

4.1 - light and enjoyable; really enjoyed the new characters in town, as a compliment to the original Arthur Truluv

Elderly Lucille Howard enjoys staying busy teaching baking classes in her Mason, Missouri home during which she shares her secret recipes and tips. In fact, word has spread about her classes and she's become so busy that she hires an assistant. Iris Wilson doesn't know anything about baking, but she needs a job and to keep busy. She has just moved to Mason from Boston and does not want to be reminded about the decision she made ten years ago -- and has regretted since.

Lucille's next-door neighbors, Abby and Jason, ask if their young son, Lincoln, might stay with Lucille from time to time. Abby has been diagnosed with cancer and is going to need treatment that can only be received in nearby Columbia.

Lucille forges friendships with newcomers Iris and little Lincoln, and remains close to Maddy, the young girl who moved in Arthur, Lucille's now-deceased beloved, when she was eighteen and pregnant. She worked as Arthur's housekeeper. Lucille moved in, as well, and they formed a family. Maddy had no mother, was estranged from her father, and had been bullied in school. But now she has nearly finished college and they keep in touch via phone calls and occasional visits. Lucille dotes on Maddy's little daughter, Nola. Sure enough,

Lucille is the heart and soul of a community compromised of residents care and look out for each other created by author Elizabeth Berg. Berg's characters are reminiscent of close family or friends her readers know and, therefore, eminently believable and infinitely endearing. Time spent with them is as fulfilling as time spent with one's own family and readers will find themselves laughing at their quirks and flaws, and then crying with them when they endure tragedy. Lucille wisely relates her experiences aging, railing against her own mortality, and mourning the love she found late in life and, as a result, with whom she had such precious little time. She admits her own mistakes and regrets, but knows that dwelling on them won't change a thing. The result is a charming, uplifting, and lovely story that is thoroughly delightful and ends far too soon. Night of Miracles is, simply, a beautiful book that should not be missed. One of the best of 2018.