I dnf'd this book after so much thought. I don't know if it's the mood I'm in or if it's the writing that I don't vibe with but I found myself getting very bored and more interested in the side characters than the main characters. I will definitely check out another book by this author to see if her writing is for me but this one was unfortunately a miss :/

Katie Collins loves Ennisbawn. She lives with her grandmother, works in the local pub and has a close knit group of friends. Construction company Glenmill is causing chaos with the development of a new luxury resort in Ennisbawn and when it threatens to further disrupt Katie's life, she takes action into her own hands, by reviving the once famous local matchmaking festival! Can Katie pull this off or will handsome developer Callum Dempsey distract Katie?

One of my favourite things about Catherine's books are the locations and the sense of community, she really nails small Irish towns and everything that goes with that (usually everyone knowing each other's business!). And while the romance part of this book (enemies to lovers) is fun and enjoyable, the friendship and community aspect of this book are lovely too. Katie has some wonderful friends and I enjoyed their small storylines as well. Katie is bold and passionate and she loves her life. I loved that she was content with living in here rural town and working locally, she wasn't a failure for loving this kind of life

Witty and heartwarming, another success from Catherine Walsh!

Ennisbawn sounds like such a charming little town in Ireland! It is a very close knit community of people who consider themselves family more than neighbors. Katie is committed to keeping her little town as it always was and a ride or die for her friends and family. When Callum strolls in as one of the people trying to change Ennisbawn, a love hate relationship ensues. He is very handsome and becomes infatuated with Katie from their first meeting.

I really enjoyed this book. Catherine Walsh has a way of weaving Katie and Callum’s story seamlessly into the saving the town with a matchmaking festival plot. Callum’s brother being the biggest pain-point in their life. The only part that threw me for a loop was the brief mention of fairies that didn’t show up again.

All in all this was a really cute story and I will be picking up more of Catherine Walsh’s books in the future!

This book hit all of the feels. I enjoy this author so much and now have only read two of her books. Reading this was like a fun, warm hug right when you needed it. The characters were fun. Life had twists and turns thrown into them. They didn't have the perfect lives. The side characters were great additions with mini stories of their own within them. I love Ireland books so this was fun to see them trying to save a small community. I can't wait to read more.

So glad that I received a free ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review of this book.

Katie Collins is from the village Ennisbawn in rural Ireland. She's lived there practically her whole life with her grandmother after her parents were killed in a car accident when she was 5. Katie is passionate about her village, her friends and the pub where she works - Kelly's. So when a development company comes in and starts building a hotel and golf club in the village she is understandably upset, couple this with the increase in traffic noise that is stopping her from sleeping she decides to do something about it.

In her pyjamas. she marches down to building site and is confronted by project co-ordinator Callum. He seems unimpressed with her lecture about the noise and swiftly tries to remove her from the site when the boss, Jack Doyle, arrives. Katie heads straight for Jack and starts in on him about what he's doing to the village and noise levels they're creating, however Jack doesn't seem particularly interested.

It's not until Jack arrives for a meeting with Katie's boss, Adam, at Kelly's that she realises she needs to stand up for her village. She tells Jack that he can't tear down the pub as it has cultural significance to the area and shows him the well where people come to make a wish to meet their soulmate. There was also a matchmaking event held every year which is how her parents met when they were teenagers. Jack calls her bluff and tells her if she prove the matchmaking event is a big draw, he'll leave the pub.

Now it's all up to Katie to pull off this big event and slowly, but surely she brings the village around and gets them all excited about the event and has them all helping to make it something special.

Throughout her planning, Katie has several chance encounters with Callum and they begin to spend a bit of time together getting to know one another. It's clear from the beginning they have a crush on one another but Callum allows Katie to set the pace, knowing she needs to see him for who he is and not just as someone who works for the opposition.

I really enjoyed this story. It was clear from the beginning that Callum had a thing for Katie and was trying to prove himself to her. He was always around and seemed to anchor her when she needed it. My favourite moment was before anything had really happened between them, when Callum told Katie that he would follow her anywhere she chose to go. He reiterates this later in the story as well when she starts to freak out about the village being too small for him and thinking he would get bored eventually. He tells her, she is his home and that he chooses her over everything else.

I would like to read more about the stories of the side characters - Gemma & Adam and how their relationship develops. Also Nush & Monica have a great story together. I would even like to see Jack mellow out and find someone who challenges him in the right way. I think there is definitely potential for a series here!

Thanks NetGalley and Bookouture for the chance to review this ARC!

Thank you Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC!

I have to say, this is the best romance book I have read this year! The overall tone of the book is sooo good.

So, the book revolves around Katie Collins who lives in a small Irish village called Ennisbawn, where life is peaceful and the community is tight-knit. Her tranquil life is disrupted when a hot-shot developer, Callum Dempsey, arrives and plans to build a hotel and knock down the only remaining pub. The pub is not just Katie's job but also her connection to her deceased parents who met at the matchmaking festival held there. In a bid to save the pub and the village, Katie revives the matchmaking festival and plans to bring the town back to life. Along the way, she may even help her friends find love, but Katie soon discovers that love is more than just a formula.

The themes tackled in the book, such as gentrification, consent, and social media, are so relevant to the issues society is facing right now. I appreciated how the author handled these topics with such care and insight. What I loved most about the book is how Katie's character develops throughout the story. She starts off not really knowing what she wants, but by the end, she's determined to make things happen for herself. And even though she's with Callum, he's not the solution to her problems. He's there to support her, but she's the one in charge. What's even better is that the book is also really funny, and I love the dynamic between Callum and Katie, their interactions are so heartwarming. And Katie's grandmother! I love her so much! She's so MOTHER. Although there are some ungrammatical lines, I still loved the this! I'm just so happy with how the author wrote this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great romance read!

This book was perfection! It was hilarious, heartwarming and everything in between. All of the characters are lovable, especially Granny! She had me laughing out loud with her retorts and witty comebacks. I was invested from the first chapter and can’t wait to read the rest of Catherine’s work, in fact I’m off now to buy the rest of her books 😂

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review

A rom com with a pup on the cover? I don’t need much else to hook me. But an awkward, anxious FMC that has no filter when she gets nervous felt like she was my friend (because she is me) He Falls First, “supposed to be” enemies to lovers, taking down the big corporations for small town Irish charm. I was charmed by this book. Not a super spicy read, but still very much entertaining.

Katie has lived her whole life in her little Irish town with her Grandma, and had no plans to change. So when a big corporation buys a bunch of land from the church and starts plowing everything down to make a new shiny hotel, she frost her teeth and bears it. But when they threaten her livelihood? Her mouth opens and all of a sudden she is in charge of putting on the annual matchmaking festival (that hasn’t happened in years) and it’s got to be good enough to get attention on their town to stop the corporate takeover. She has no money, no event space, and no idea how to run a festival. What could go wrong?

I love a good feel good romantic comedy and this was it from start to finish. I was laughing out loud at the banter between all the characters and was equally as invested in the side characters as I was Callum & Katie. The relationships between every character were well developed, platonic, familial, or romantic, and it was evident how much the community truly cared for one another. No third act breakup was also a plus! I look forward to reading more of Catherine’s work!

*special thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this early in exchange for an honest review*

ARC review - 3.5 rating

This was a cute, small town romance that had a good mix of funny, romantic, and serious moments. There were some missed opportunities to explore and develop characters a little further, but overall a good read that I finished in a day!

Thank you so much for an advanced copy of this book!

I love Catherine Walsh, and I loved this book. It was just as good as its predecessors, and I was totally invested in this storyline. The characters and the plot were perfection, and I will literally read anything Catherine decides to write!

Star Rating: 5⭐️

Eeeek! This was so much fun. The supporting cast of characters were so funny and I loved that Walsh brought everyone full circle and not just Katie and Callum.

This was so well written, that I felt like I was watching it and not reading it. This is the first time I have read anything from Walsh and it won’t be my last. This was funny, heartwarming, sad, and got a little steamy. I liked that it wasn’t an instant love situation, but Katie and Callum built up to it. It wasn’t boring or drawn out, but the perfect pace! I knew I was going to love the book within the first chapter!

This was cute, but very surface level. It was a little too “insta-love” for me, which didn’t really allow me to be fully invested in the main love story. I was actually more interested in the budding relationship of two side characters. The book was a warm hug, but i just wanted a bit more feeling.

Thank you Netgalley and Bookouture Publishing for this ARC.
"So I made a decision. And my decision is you. I chose you".

A romance set in a small Irish village featuring Katie Collins, a sassy bartender and Callum Dempsey, a hot property developer.
Katie has never left her sleepy village and with big corp property developers threatening to take over her beloved village and more importantly demolish the pub that she has worked at her entire life, she prepares to fight with everything she's got - mainly a made-up matchmaking festival

I laughed a lot throughout this book. Some of the one-liners were brilliantly written.
The growing romance between Katie and Callum was sweet although really slow. It took forever for them to finally get together!
The subplots were pretty good - the elderly grandmother, the friends also looking for love and might I say Jack (Callums brother and boss). I found myself intrigued by him and ended up wanted to read more about him.
A really cute heartwarming, funny read.

I have recently rediscovered my love of reading, especially in reading romance novels, and could not have picked a better introduction into the Rom-Com world and that of ARC’s.

Katie is a main character who is easily relatable. She is hard working, witty, and finding her groove in her late twenties when her small Irish village and cozy way of life is upended by the development of a new hotel and the appearance of headache slash heartthrob Callum. Through a series of plans rooted in both stubbornness and sentimentality, we see Katie step up to fiercely protect her friends and her village. But attempting to guard things that are close to her heart comes at what cost?

I loved the character development, world building, and plot twists. By the end of the book I felt that I could be friends with any of the crew contained within. It was a hilarious and heart warming read that I would definitely recommend.

That said, I would have like to have more depth to the romantic relationships. It felt as if the surface was barely scratched and left me wanting more. I also would have loved a bit more of an in depth look into the side characters. Overall while the plot was predictable, it was enjoyable and I didn’t feel that it fell flat.

"So I made a decision. And my decision is you. I chose you." (My fav quote)

So I gotta say when I received the arc for this book I was super excited because of the cover.

I loved Katie in the beginning as well as Callum but I just couldn’t feel the love between them. I feel like the book is mostly focused on the town than it is the love between the two. When they got together it felt like it came from nothing?

Not to say that someone else won’t like this book but for me when I read a book I have to feel it and I didn’t feel this one

This did not disappoint! A well written and a totally immersive read. I loved the characters and was invested from the start. This small town romance had all the feels for me. With its comedy and feel good factor it was like having a chat with your best friend. Thanks for letting me read and review it.

Unfortunately, this book was a little lackluster for me. I was not invested in Katie and Callum's relationship and didn't sense any sort of connection/chemistry between them. It gave me "insta love" vibes and the outside tension didn't seem like much of an influence on their relationship development.

I really loved The Rebound by this author, so I will definitely be looking forward to reading her future books.

* Thank you to NetGalley & Bookouture for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

5* Full of Irish quirkiness.

Feeling a bit low and in need of cheering up? Read The Matchmaker by Catherine Walsh, she's an excellent storyteller and this novel is a guaranteed way to raise your spirits, less fattening than eating cake.

A David and Goliath situation arises as locals take on a Big Development Company to save the destruction of their village pub.

Containing such sparkling dialogue that the characters come to life, the storyline became addictive reading. A great choice for a fun read.

Thank you Bookouture and NetGalley for the ARC, this review is my personal, unbiased opinion

Possibly one of my favorite books of the year. A wonderful romance that ticked all the boxes. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book.