While I love any book about books, book clubs, or libraries this book just seemed extra slow to me and I don't feel like the characters were very well established. Its a 3 star for me.

"It Started as a book club. It became a way to build a better life together."
The Best Life Book Club is about four friends who explore life and relationships in the book club they have. The author has wrote an amazing book that will have you turning pages till the very end. The overall theme in this book is friendship and how important friendship can be. I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to reading more books by this author. This book would be a great fit for any book club or reader. Thank you to NetGalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing and the Author for this ARC read in exchange of my honest review of The Best Life Book Club.

First off, thank you, NetGalley, Sheila Roberts, and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review.

First off, the cover is adorable. The premise of this book was so interesting and I was excited to see it play out.

There were some great messages in this book about personal growth and moving on after life drags you down. I loved that.

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. I struggled to get into it. There were some great points and some cute moments that I really enjoyed, but overall, I wasn't immersed in the story. I struggled to follow along when it jumped from one POV to the next between the 4 main characters.

I also struggled to connect with any characters. Margot was my favorite, as she had the most personality.

Perhaps because I haven't been in any situations like these women, I couldn't relate enough.

I hope other readers are able to connect with this story and these characters more than I did.

The Best Life Book Club
Sheila Roberts
May 7, 2024

Karissa Newcomb was overcome when her husband announced his intent to end their marriage. He told her he had fallen in love with Allegra Gray, her best friend and neighbor. Karissa and Mark’s daughter, Macy is friends with her daughter, Charlotte. After a long binge of reflecting, she felt it was best to sell the house and move away from Seattle. The realtor helped with the search and together they found a smart home in Gig Harbor, Washington. She’d found a terrific job with a small publishing company. Now settling into the house and finding new friends was the tough part. Neither she nor Macy were comfortable starting their first day at work or at school.
The Best Life Book Club will be published by Mira Books of Harlequin on May 07, 2024. I was able to read the ARC by Sheila Roberts via NetGalley. I appreciate their allowing me to read this delightful novel. It tells a tale of three women who are alone due to divorce or becoming a widow. These ladies are all in the same neighborhood. They welcomed Marissa with open hearts. From start to finish it is superb. I thoroughly enjoyed this work from start to finish. Find a copy of Roberts latest book and do enjoy!

Four woman, all struggling with something in their lives, will form a book club and help each other face their challenges. Karissa is trying to start her life over in a new neighbourhood post divorce with her little girl. After being betrayed she is having a hard time feeling confident and trusting anybody. Alice lost the love of her life and instead of spending her retirement having adventures with him her world has slowly gotten smaller. Josie and her daughter haven’t spoken in months, she misses her but is insistent her daughter needs to make the first move for reconciliation. Margot was laid off and didn’t realize how hard it would be to find another one. Finding friendship and advice in their book club the four women will come together to improve their lives.

I like parts of this book. I really like each of the woman, they all have great storylines. I love all the book references, nothing gets readers excited like seeing an author reference their favourite titles. On the whole I would say I liked it.
That being said, it did feel a little repetitive and disorganized at times. It felt like there was a bit too much crammed into this story, and a few less plot points giving space to flesh out the other ones would have been great.
But it is a lovely story about female friendships and books.
Thank you to @_mira_books_ and @netgalley for letting me have a copy early to review. Look for #thebestlifebookclub May 7 2024.
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3.5 🌟 a touching read following four women who have undergone significant life changes and find solace in their book club 🫶🏼 honestly such a feel good book with pretty quick pacing! I loved the project the women took on together and how they all went from strangers to the best support system. Also, I’m a sucker for an older, crotchety person who has a lot of growth! I think the two things I struggled with were how much we jumped around in POVs with no clear signal that we were switching and would have to switch gears quickly. Having shorter chapters with a POV for each chapter would have made the reading experience easier for me. Second, I really didn’t need the focus to be on the romances as much. It would have been nice to not have as perfect as an ending and having the women find contentment anyways. But overall, I had a good time with it and will be recommending it!

This is my first Sheila Roberts book, and I was pleasantly surprised. The book begins with Karissa, whose husband leaves her for the women next door, who Karissa thought was her friend. She moves to a small town near Seattle and gets a job with a small publishing company. She is befriended by the woman next door with her own problems, which brings the neighborhood together along with Josie, Alice's sister.
Each chapter begins with a particular quote from a fictional book.
The 4 woman, 2 divorced and sisters Alice and Josie widows.
We follow each of the women as they
support each other and learn from the book club books.
This is a romance, so each woman gets a happy ending, in more ways than one.
Although several of the books were self-help books, a genre I do not read, Roberts almost convinced me by how the books helped each woman progress.
The only real book that the women discussed was Jane Eyre, whose author is long dead, so I did enjoy that discussion.
I am a little book obsessed, and I am in 8 book clubs a month, so I really enjoyed the book club aspect of this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my EARC. This is my honest review. I enjoyed the book and was rooting for all the characters, as I am sure you will be.
I also received a lovely card from the author to give to my book club when we read this book, with a recipe from Alice for Pina colada shortbread that I will attempt to bake.

This book was a 3.5/5 star read for me. I was so happy to be an ARC reader on this one! This follows four women who are all different ages and at different points in their lives. You get to learn about their past hardships. The great thing about this story is that books are really what brought them all together and really started their friendship. They start a book club and every book they read helps them in navigating their life choices and putting them on a path to happiness. The only thing I noticed was the pacing was off. Some of the storylines were rushed and some dragged on. Overall I enjoyed this book and I would definitely recommend it to a friend. I’m happy to know these characters.

This book is a love letter to friendships. Friends can help you through life no matter what you go through. They provide you with the support you need. Karissa, Margot, Josie, and Alice are all different in almost all ways(except their love for all things related to books) but yet they are a group of women that builds each other up instead of tearing each other down. This group of women goes through a lot of life changing events and they are always there for each other. When you find your tribe hold on as hard as you can because those are the people you have chose to be family! Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC in return for my honest review.


Mandy Harris
Angel Wings Bookstore

As soon as I read the synopsis, I knew this was a book that I would enjoy. It was entertaining for me and I found that majority of the characters were relatable in their own ways.

The pace of the story was okay in regard to some jumps between POVs without indication but it was not the end of the world for me. I loved the concept behind the story and the HEA.

Thank you NetGalley for the digital review copy.

The cover of this book is very appealing and the description of the story was interesting to me. I found this book to be an entertaining and ok read.

I liked all four main characters in this book. It was easy to empathize with Karissa, Margot, Alice and Josie as they dealt with the issues in their lives. The secondary characters all added to the story. I would have liked more with Shirley and Andre though.

The story's pace was ok but there were some awkward jumps between characters. Perhaps that is due to the layout of the eARC and won't seem so awkward in the final edition. I just found it to interrupt the flow of the story a little bit.

Overall this was an enjoyable story and, for the most part, easy to read. Similar in style to Debbie Macomber so if you are a fan of hers you will enjoy this book.

3.5 stars.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion which I have given.

The Best Life Book Club is a straightforward, positive adult romance. It starts off slowly with perfectly nice, run of the mill protagonist Karissa, then picks up when her neighbors and their love interests and problems are introduced.
One-dimensional Karissa lives every writer/readers' fantasy: pursuing her handsome editor at her new job at a book publishing house. (I just read that the author's books are made into Hallmark Channel movies, so the stereotypical- or "ubiquitous" as one character puts it- plot now makes sense.)
This book is good for people who want something easy and relatable to read with a HEA.
Thank you Mira and NetGalley for the digital review copy.

One of my biggest bookish pet peeves is switching points of view without clear markers. It is so hard as a reader when things aren’t laid out clearly, and this book was so bad at doing so. I got about 25% in and was so confused that I ultimately DNF’d the book. I just couldn’t follow what was going on because many of the stories started out the same, but yet they ended up being a different character, it was so frustrating. I’m all for different points of view, but add a chapter marker if you are not going to clearly define who’s storyline we are in.

This was an easy, quick, read, and follows four women as they work through various life/personal challenges. I was hoping for a bit more depth, but if you need a quick read, and enjoy stories about female friendship, this is a good one for you!
Thank you, NetGalley, and the publisher for access to this eARC.

Easy read story of a woman making a new life for herself and her daughter, after her husband leaves her for her best friend and their neighbor. She moves to a new house in a new neighborhood and finds a job working at a publishing house. She makes friends with her new neighbors and they start a book club.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a new author for me. I requested this book because I had really enjoyed her short story in "Mistetoe Season". It was romantic and witty. However, this story was written in a different style. Very similar to Debbie Macomber's books but somehow I just couldn't really connect with the characters. I certainly liked it enough to read it all the way through but I must admit that I kept checking the percentage read to see my progress.

I'm going to try one of Roberts' earlier works and am hoping that it has the humor that I felt this story was missing.

Gah! I really don't like giving negative reviews but I wanted to be honest.

Lovely small town, local book for me….Gig Garbor, WA! Love the idea of neighbors of different ages firming a book club and getting together as friends. Each character had issues and their bond helped them each grow stronger.

I wanted to love this book more than I did. I felt that it switched over to different povs at random times but was kind of hard to not get confused. I did like the premise of the story and loved how relatable the characters were.

“Every small need you meet is a stepping stone to fulfilling bigger needs.”
At its heart, “The Best Life Book Club” is about redemption and reimagining your life. When Karissa Newcomb’s husband cheats on her with her best friend and neighbor, she and her daughter move to idyllic Gig Harbor, a small town a respectable distance away, seeking a new start. Karissa has a new job, with a small publishing house, and a group of neighbors who quickly become book club members and then friends. Through the course of the novel, we follow Karissa and her crew, watching each of them grapple with their own challenges and come out the other side.
This book has a lot going for it: charming cover, compelling setup, sweet characters who make you want things to work out for them. While we spent time beneath the surface with each character, I found myself wanting more: more showing, less telling, more letting the women be fully fleshed out people, navigating complex issues.
This wasn’t a home run for me, but I was happy to spend time in Gig Harbor - and pleased to leave Karissa and crew to their HEA after I departed for other horizons.

This book follows 4 different women who have experienced some kind of hurt/loss and their individual healing journeys through finding community in a book club.

I really had a hard time with this book. I found the writing was extremely scattered and switched between POVs without any page breaks, chapter breaks, etc. I felt as though the characters were extremely difficult to connect with, borderline insufferable. Found myself rolling my eyes at several of them. No character development, just felt like they wallowed in the hard times life dealt them.

I feel like picking one FMC to base the story around and using the others as supporting characters would’ve offered more time for a good character arc/development. It just felt like a hodgepodge of stories thrown together.

The premise of this book was super promising, but it really missed the mark for me.