Review: Match Me If You Can by Michele Gorman

Title: Match Me If You Can by Michele Gorman
Publisher: Notting Hill Press
Genre: Contemporary, Women’s Fiction, Romance
Length: 448 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher

Summary:

Ever thought about recycling your Ex?

Best friends Catherine, Rachel & Sarah are fun, smart, successful and single – just like millions of women with a low tolerance for idiocy in their dates.

Mr. Right hasn’t turned up yet, and Mr. Right-Now isn’t worth booking a wax appointment for. So when Catherine, London’s finest matchmaker, gets Rachel and Sarah to join her dating site where they can recycle their ex-boyfriends in exchange for an upgrade, they soon realize that anything could happen . . .

Three best friends, proving that sometimes it really isn’t you… it’s him.

Review:

Match Me If You Can by Michele Gorman is a heartwarming novel of friendship and love.

Catherine, Rachel and Sarah are best friends who also purchased a house together. Catherine, a thirty-something divorcee, co-owns a matchmaking service with her ex-husband and best friend, Richard. Sarah mainly works from home as a wedding card illustrator and she also loves to bake. Rachel is an architect who works closely with her ex-boyfriend and current guypal James. While Catherine is forced to become business partners with Richard’s fiancée, Magda, Rachel talks Sarah to signing up with their friend’s dating service in hopes of reviving their non-existent love lives.

While Catherine has no regrets over her divorce from Richard, she is none too pleased to be working with Magda. Her hopes that Magda will not be involved with the day to day operation of the business are soon dashed when she not only shows up daily to work but insists on trying to make changes to the service. In addition, Magda forces Catherine to weigh in on her upcoming wedding plans which in turn causes Catherine to reflect on her own failed marriage to Richard. These musings lead to unexpected insight on their shared past and she discovers she does not know herself or Richard nearly as well as she initially thought.

Ever since her mother’s death, Sarah has been content to stick close to home except for visits with her siblings. Realizing she needs to make some changes to her life, she takes Rachel’s fashion advice and steps way out of her comfort zone when she begins dating a man who enjoys late night dates at local hotspots. After an audition for a baking reality show, Sarah comes to a realization about some of her recent decisions but will she strike a better balance between her busy social life and her true personality?

After a rather unusual date with someone she met at a pub, Rachel is ready to take a more formal approach to dating so she decides to join Catherine’s matchmaking site. She begins dating someone she meets through the service just as she begins working on a major project with James. Rachel eventually begins to re-evaluate her previous relationship with James and she comes to startling realizations about herself.

Match Me If You Can by Michele Gorman is an entertaining journey of self-discovery for Catherine, Rachel and Sarah. Although there are romantic elements to the storyline, the main focus of the novel is the women’s individual growth. A delightfully engaging story with an appealing cast of vibrantly developed characters that fans of contemporary women’s fiction are sure to enjoy.