After reading this short story — I found out that this was related to the authors previous book ` The bookstore sisters` — I have always enjoyed this author and have now become intrigued to this book from reading this short story.

The narrative follows the sisters Isabel and Sophie as they navigate the challenges that come their way as they plan for Isabel’s wedding

This is a light , quick read — that at it core is focused on themes of family, love, second chances, and communities coming together.

Thank you to Netgalley and Amazon Original Stories for this ARC. This is my honest review.

2.75⭐️
I am thankful to have gotten the eARC for free from Netgalley and Amazon Original Stories so I can leave my voluntary and honest review.

Well in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep but was exhausted I saw this as a “read now” on NetGalley. The description looked cute so I downloaded it and promptly fell asleep.

I had not realized it was from Alice Hoffman when I started off. As I was reading I felt like it was really familiar so I jumped onto GoodReads and read that it was book 2 in this short story series and then saw who wrote it and why it was so familiar. When I had gotten back into reading a couple years ago I had asked for the Practical magic series as I heard great things and I loved the movie. Well those books still sit on my book shelf unread as I had to DNF book one.

I wrote this as background because personally I just don’t like her writing style but obviously many many people do! But with that being said ai tried to set that part aside to review this and I still didn’t enjoy it much.

The overarching story is sweet for sure but I feel like I just read an extended outline of a book. I realize that short stories have their challenges due to them being, well, short but I have read some great ones that are rich and descriptive. This one was not.

I gave it 3⭐️ simply because it has some merit and folks who like short stories may indeed like it. But for me it just didn’t meet my expectation of a good book.

My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars and I rarely round up.

⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again

A big thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for giving me this ARC.



This was the first Novella that I have ever read, and it did not disappoint. The flow of the story was good. Even though it was a Novella I didn't feel that anything was rushed. I think the author did a great job at portraying the characters' feelings. This is a good quick read for anyone who wants a good heartfelt romance story. I will definitely be reading the other two books in this series!

I really enjoyed The Bookstore Sisters and will definitely read The Bookstore Keepers.
Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read this advanced copy. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.