Six friends, three married couples. A birthday tradition.

For over a decade, the group has had dinner, drinks, and cake at their favourite Italian restaurant Giorgio, to celebrate each of their birthdays. A tradition they each look forward to, a night to reconnect and unwind together. But on Nathan’s 40th birthday he shocks everyone, especially his wife, when he announces that he wants a divorce. What follows is a detailed look into the married lives of each couple. The couples are forced to re-examine their own marriages, their own needs, their own desires. Each reflecting off Nathan and Louisa’s divorce, they begin to wonder if they’re happy in their own marriages, or if they’re heading down a similar path.

This novel reminded me of shows like 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦, and movies like 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺. As we shift between the couples getting a comprehensive look into their lives. The novel switches POV between ALL six characters + two side characters. That is no easy feat. To establish and give eight characters a POV, while making sure each character is unique and authentic. And for the most part this was achieved. There were clear distinctions between characters. They all had their own unique traits, beliefs, reflections, and flaws. By having everyone’s POV, I was able to empathize with each character (well except for Nathan, ha). Instead of just getting one side of the story, the reader gets ALL sides to a story, which provided a fuller, clearer picture. Allowing for further insight and understanding while digging into their marital problems.

Honestly, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this novel. It took me a minute to get into it but once I was in, I was fully invested. The novel explores typical marital issues like infidelity, infertility, and incompatible sex drives. And it didn’t particularly give me any new understanding or insight into the lives and complications of married people. But I still enjoyed it for what it did provide. Situations and perspectives to contemplate and reflect on. Just enough drama, just enough fun, just enough confrontation. And at the heart of the story, honest, relatable, and flawed characters you are compelled to root for.

Recommended to those who like novels about the complexities of relationships, parenthood, and friendships.

Thank you to #netgalley, Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing and author for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.75/5

Fun, real life drama read. Loved it all.

Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

Ten years of peaceful celebratory birthday dinners for three couples end dramatically when Louisa’s husband Nathan announces he wants a divorce. He’s fallen in love with a Mona, a student at the university where he is a college professor. The year that follows will test the marriages of all the couples. There are affairs, infertility, problems with careers, children and more. But life goes on and while Nathan and Louisa, Abe and Amy and Matteo and Mickey are dealing with their midlife problems, they have everyday worries to contend with. Things will work out for all but perhaps not in the ways they had hoped.

Long term relationships make a compelling subject for Reservations for Six. A new start, as Nathan learns, is not always the best way to handle boredom. Neither are some of the other ways these couples try to jump start their tired marriages. It’s absorbing, thought-provoking and will make an excellent selection for book clubs. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing and Lindsey J. Palmer for this ARC.

Really enjoyed this book! For a decade, 3 couples get together on their birthdays at their favorite restaurant and say out loud their birthday wish. One evening the birthday boy wishes to get a divorce and that changes all 6 of them in different ways. It made them all rethink their own marriages.

I didn’t like some of the friends but they were all well written. It reminds you that the grass isn’t always greener and you never know what a marriage is like from the outside. The characters were all friendly with each other through good and bad and handled their issues as adults, for the most part.

Thanks to NetGalley and Wyatt-MacKenzie for allowing me to read this book. Two thumbs up!!

A very humorous book, very lively and about millennial living. I loved the exploration of friendship in the book, as well as love and family.

I tried really hard to get in to this book but I found the character development so poor and the writing style so stilted that I could not finish it.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of Reservations for Six by Lindsey J. Palmer. This story about the complicated relationships between a group of three couples will give you plenty of laugh out loud moments and a lot of aha moments too. A realistic look at infidelity, infertility and the true meaning of friendship, Reservations for Six is a long but engaging read.

I want to thank @netgalley for the opportunity to review this ARC by Lindsey Palmer. I really enjoyed Reservations for Six. It’s a pretty long book and I read it in a day. I really felt like I was part of the character’s life. The book is about a group of 6 friends, 3 couples, approaching middle age. They meet at “their” restaurant for to celebrate each of their birthdays. The book opens with Nathan’s birthday. He drops a bombshell on his wife as he blows out his candles, upending everyone’s lives. Each couple faces some hard truths with their relationships and throughout the book they work through them. Palmer accurately describes this time of life of relationships, parenting, work, and friendships.

This book is really unique and I enjoyed all the characters. This book also encourages you to take inventory of your life and who is in it.

Three couples convene for a regular birthday dinner at Giorgio’s to celebrate and catch up, as they have for the past six years. After blowing out the candles, the birthday boy makes a startling wish that changes the course of all 3 marriages. Reservations for Six is an engaging book focusing on the inner workings of relationships, revealing that some of the most potent secrets are not the ones kept from your peers, but rather from your partner.

I found this book slow to get into, but once the first secret dropped, I was hooked. I enjoyed learning about the relationships, but even more so, the friendships between the characters (notably, Abe and Louisa). The author discussed the intricacies of marriage, and we are able to compare and contrast the relationships presented. I also really liked how she wrote about parenting, infertility, and adoption. The world building in the beginning was a bit tedious and included an unnecessary level of detail but helped set the stage and explain the history between the 6 main characters. The organizational style of the book, with chapters dedicated to individual characters, allowed us to hear their innermost thoughts. I liked that a few of the chapters were told from the perspective of ancillary characters so we could understand their stories as well.

While I enjoyed the book and read it in two days, I did knock off one star from my rating. The book built up plenty of conflict but the ending was ultimately unsatisfying. As a reader, I am always looking to see if the loose ends are tied up and there were a few key plot lines that were never thoroughly addressed, mainly concerning Amy.

Amy mentioned her apprehension in regards to adoption, particularly transracial adoption, and notes on multiple occasions that she is the only non-white person in a room that she is in. Despite this being brought up multiple times in the book, there is no reconciliation with her parents, and no contact or sense of closure with her questions about her birth family. There is also no concluding situation in which she seems to be at peace with her racial identity. In the end, it seems like her character is simply written off while everyone else continues growing. The ending also seemed a bit rushed, with reconciliations taking place without much of an explanation.

Overall, I found this to be an interesting book examining the complexities of marriage and parenthood.

**I would like to note that there is a typo on the first page of Chapter 41. The word "ringing" should be "wringing". Thank you.