I’m sorry to say that I was not as into this book as I wanted to be it was a lot to keep a track of and a lot going on.

Natalie Groves was dumped by her fiancé 7 years earlier and her father diagnosed with cancer. God just doesn't care about her. So she thinks. Now Jeremy is back in town with a baby son and Natalie is helping her parents with their finances after the medical bills pile up. She just lost her job and she agrees to nanny Jeremy's baby. What? Lots of issues in this debut novel, and they are handled well by the author. Redemption really works as both Nat and Jem discover and God wasn't so far away after all.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson Publishers via Net Galley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

With that said, i really liked this one. It was a bit hard to get into at first, a lot to keep track of, but once i got into it i really enjoyed the story. Just goes to prove that even people (couples) that you think are perfect, aren't. That no one is immune to sin and stumbling. It's how you come out of it that matters, how you deal with it that matters. I enjoyed all of the characters in this story, and hope maybe there's another story here. I don't like to give play by plays in my reviews, that's why you read the book in the first place, I don't do Cliff's Notes, I give you a general feel of a story. This one is good, go read it when it comes out.

I was provided with an ARC of this title from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was a light-hearted easy read that explores what happens when everything you thought was true dissolves into complete chaos. The main character is forced to examine her life in light of God's plan, and comes to a peace and understanding that are hard-won but deeply meaningful.

3.5 Stars.

It is very vital for an author to capture a reader within the first couple of pages; this author failed to do that. I tried reading it, but lost interest and skipped a few pages to see if I would get interested in the story, but I didn't.

Natalie Groves hates public speaking, but she’ll do anything to save her job. She’ll do just about anything to keep her family financially afloat. Seven years of living through a broken heart, dreams on hold, and her father’s cancer has shown her that she can and will do whatever it takes to help her family. Almost.

Jeremy Walters, the man who dumped Natalie weeks before their wedding and broke her heart returns to town, ready to live out the changes in his life. Jem returns with a college degree, a job lined up at the local paper, and an infant son. He’s ready to make his father proud and start living up to his perfect pastor brother’s reputation

When Jem asks Natalie to act as a nanny for his son, she refuses. After all, when your best friend breaks your heart, forgiveness feels like climbing Mt. Everest. But when Natalie gets an unpaid internship at church that could turn into a paid position, she knows that Jem’s job offer might provide the only barrier between bankruptcy and squeaking by. So she takes it.

Charlottesville Christian Church hides more than one broken heart. Steph, the pastor’s wife, feels distant from her husband, but she hides her hurt in church work and cheerleading others on, including her friend Natalie.

When Lili walks in on her dad and her art teacher sharing a passionate kiss, she has no idea what to do with the information. Her dad admits that he and her mom are going through a rough patch, and suggests that Lili move in with her Uncle Jem for a while to help with her nephew after school.

Australian author Jessica Kate weaves humor, pathos, and quirky situations into her first novel published in the United States. Readers will come away with a deeper understanding about the fallibility of humans (even church people), treating others with love and choosing forgiveness.

The story line for this book was pretty steady and well written, but I thought it was kind of a depressing read, actually. Most of the story was about relationships gone wrong and one of the story lines never concluded or had a positive outcome. I wanted to like it but not sure I did fully. I would try another one of hers; just hope it is more upbeat and positive.

Love and Other mistakes is my first book by Jessica Kate and it's also my first christian fiction.

The story was cute and it is about two brothers and their families, their rather complicated relationship with their father and their love interests. In the small town, we follow the family as they discover family secrets and how they impact their lives.

The ending left me a bit confused since it didn't solve or deal with a major problem that some of the characters dealt with and that was quite unsatisfying.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy the book in exchange for a review.

(4.5 stars) - a wonderful, heart-warming story wrapped in a complex melodrama

The story begins with a re-meet cute that was clever & fairly original. It was very effective at grabbing my interest & the author kept me thoroughly engaged from there.

As another reviewer mentioned, don't be put off by the distracting use of unusual similes at the beginning - they fade to the background after that.

The story's central focus is on Jem & Natalie, but it also shares the problems & perspectives of their nearby family members because of how they are all intertwined & affect each other. Their problems are pivotal to Jem & Natalie's relationship.

Jem's reasons for leaving Natalie are refreshingly credible for creating a sympathetic broken engagement trope that succeeds in avoiding having the leading man looking like a jerk or unreasonable martyr. The years of confusion, wounds, & scars between them are dealt with realistically.

With all that's going on, the story could easily have been overly angsty, but the writing keeps things surprisingly, though not inappropriately, lighthearted despite the seriousness of the material, & it avoids being depressing.

The ending succeeds in being realistic while still feeling uplifting & granting the desired happily-ever-after. I very much look forward to whatever this author writes next.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Clean romance level: passionate kisses
Religion: overtly Christian, several characters are Baptist but discussions are relatively generic

To be very honest with you I wanted to give up about 20% into this book but my husband told me not to. He said "Cecily not all books grab your full attention at the beginning and you could be surprised ".

I am going to be fair and give this book 3 Stars.

Was this book what I expected? No
Did I dislike this book? No

This book is a Christian Fiction book in my opinion. There is a love of God talk and church talk in it.

But the thing that I liked the lost about this book is that every character is real.

You have a mother who was a drunk. I teenager who tried to get drunk. A teenager who runs away. A cheating husband. Two parents who care more about what the church people think rather then their own daughter.

I mean this just proves that no matter how godly you are...you are human. Human makes mistakes! Regardless of how high you are.

So yes I am glad I continued this read.

Love and Other Mistakes by Jessica Kate is the quintessential contemporary romance novel. With a predictable plot and a story focused completely on the romance and budding on and off relationship between Natalie and Jeremy, Kate created a story worthy of fans of contemporary romance. I do enjoy how Kate created Natalie to have snarky responses toward Jeremy. She still has a lot of ways to go when readers meet her for the first time to forgive Jeremy. There is a lot of normal interactions and confusion that life brings that Kate didn't shy away from. She created a realistic world for the characters to roam around and tell their story. I did find the story a little dry at parts because it didn't have anything happening to progress the story forward. The story does end with the predictable happily-ever-after marriage ceremony. Overall, Love and Other Mistakes is a wonderful read for fans of contemporary romance. Fans of Contemporary romance like Kara Issac, Courtney Walsh, and Melissa Tagg would probably enjoy this novel.

I received a complimentary copy of Love and Other Mistakes by Jessica Kate from Thomas Nelson Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

I predict this will be a huge debut novel for Jessica Kate. Her writing is fun and entertaining, but sometimes her transitions from one storyline to another were hard to distinguish in my copy. Therefore it disrupted the flow of the story. This issue may be resolved in the final edits. There are many layers to this story and many relationships in need of restoration and healing, but not everything in this book is wrapped up into a tidy bow and resolved. The topic of forgiveness is handled well and delivered realistically.  The infidelity between two of the secondary characters is a major theme throughout the book but the author never addresses it in depth so I never developed empathy of either of them, but they daughter received all of my compassion.  Maybe the author plans a book tackling their story.  I did appreciate the lessons Natalie learned about herself and how faith opened her eyes to a better future.



I received a copy from the Publisher through Net Galley. The opinions expressed are my own.

Love and Other Mistakes is my first book by this author and my first christian fiction. I really didn't pay attention while requesting this, that it's christian fiction. I didn't even know that it was a thing.
I guess you live and learn. But I didn't mind. It read as some of the chick lit I have read.

This is a story about two brothers and their families, kids, love interest and complicated relationship with their father. In a small town where one brother is a pastor and another comes back after long time being away, we get to go on a journey discovering family secrets and how they affect their families and lives.

I found blurb really misleading as this book really isn't about Natalie and her ex boyfriend Jem being back. She is more of a side character or maybe the plethora of characters don't give anyone space to be the protagonist of this story. They all are intertwined. But I did find Lilly, the pastor daughter, the most interesting one in this book. I think her emotional journey is what kept my interest throughout the book, as I really wanted to see how everything will turn out. I also find her the most honest and true to situation written character. Imagine my disappointment when at the end abrupt and poor epilogue doesn't solve any or major problem couple of characters dealt with.

I don't need rosy and happy ending but this confusion and unfinished plot line is really something I cannot accept.
So some characters do get the ending they deserve as I don't want to give anything away. But other then that I found the overall book lacking some major parts of the story.


Somewhere between two and three stars.

Thanks to publisher and NetGalley for copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
All opinion are my own.

Struggled to finish. Didn’t realize it was a Christian fiction which isn’t my cup of tea. Characters were all over the place and just couldn’t get into it

I gave this story 4 stars because once I got into the story I could not put it down. The characters were compelling and I wanted to see how their problems resolved. I really did like Jem and Natalie. I also really felt for Lilli and the challenges she was facing.

At times the story was like watching a train wreck—one disaster after another piled on. I admit to a few eye rolls at times because of the many compounding problems. I realize that often happens in real life, but in fiction it almost becomes unbelievable.

If you’re reading the first few chapters and the aithor’s use of off-the-wall similes drives you crazy, keep going. Eventually she quits using them so much!

Overall it was an enjoyable read. Great for relaxing over the summer.

I didn’t vibe with this one. It didn’t do much for me. It’s tragic I know. I felt like the characters were all flat and sad and I didn’t enjoy myself resting it very much at all.

I had high hopes for this book! The synopsis had me hooked and I couldn't wait to get started however, it didn't work for me. At all! I found the storylines didn't add up, the characters annoyed me. I had to force myself to keep reading. I absolutely loved Ollie's character! He was sweet!!
Thank you to netgalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Christian fiction version of Love Actually. Multiple couples, interconnected lives. Pastor dirtbag cheated on his wife and blamed her reluctance to attend marital counselling. Some things did not add up.

While I was reading this book, a song from the 1970’s kept running through my head: “If There’s a God in Heaven (What’s He Waiting for?)” by Elton John. Most people who believe in God have occasional lapses in faith when they look around and see the poverty, suffering and pain and a Creator who doesn’t seem to be paying attention to any of it.

The main character in this book--Natalie--doesn’t use those words, but is definitely subconsciously asking “Where’s God?” throughout this book. She’s dealing with a pile of problems that just seem to get bigger. Three of her biggest problems: 1) A father who has cancer; 2) mounting medical bills that she can’t pay; 3) Her company just decided to close the local branch of their office and eliminate all of the jobs in it, including hers.

Then in marches problem number four to add more stress to her life. She’s just run into her ex-fiance, who dumped her 10 weeks before their wedding and left town with no explanation. Jeremy “Jem” Walters is back—seven years later—and he’s not alone. He’s holding a nine-month-old baby boy named Oliver who calls him ‘da-da.’

Natalie is angry that he moved out of her life so easily, pursuing his dreams of a college education and becoming a journalist. Her life was shattered when he left. Then, her father fell ill shortly after and she had to forego college and a dream career in youth ministry so she could take any job that would help pay her father’s medical bills.

She heart rips painfully when she realizes that he fulfilled another one of their dreams—to become a father. They had talked about having a family together. Oliver wasn’t her child—but another woman’s child.

Then, to make matters even worse, Jem asks her to take care of his son during the day while he goes to his job at a local newspaper. At first she refuses. But she has no luck finding another job and the medical bills keep coming, so she decides to take the job, provided Jem allows her to also pursue an internship with an Australian minister who is extending his world famous youth ministry program to their town.

Of course, the more time they spend together, the more their attraction and love is rekindled. But there are many problems they need to overcome. Oliver gets very sick, and they discover he has diabetes. So they are forced to work together to ensure that Oliver stays healthy and his blood sugar remains constant.

Then there’s the problem of Jem’s 16 year old niece, Lili. She’s living temporarily with Jem because her parents (Jem’s brother Michael and his wife Stephani) are having marital problems. Lili is devastated when she finds out her father is having an affair with her art teacher. That’s bad enough, but the art teacher is also the aunt of her good friend Nick. Keeping the secret of the affair is tearing Lili up inside. Unable to deal with the lies and deceit, she runs away.

As more and more complicated problems erupt, Natalie fights to keep her faith in what seems like unjust and unfair consequences for leading a life that she believes God asked her to live. Will she overcome the problems? Will they find Lili? Will the affair between Michael and the art teacher be exposed? Will Michael and Stephani be able to reconcile? And will Natalie enjoy her HEA (happily ever after) with Jem and Oliver?

Guess you’ll just have to read the book to find out. (Sorry—I can’t spoil it for you!)

This book makes you realize that no matter how dismal and dark you own life seems at the moment, that there are others in our world who are also facing difficulties and painful situations. And that God works in our lives in unexpected ways to bring out the best possible outcome—often an outcome you and I could never had imagined.

A fast-paced plot with super-busy (often frenetic) characters, “Love and Other Mistakes”, by Jessica Kate, is an enjoyable, cute read about a couple’s second-chance at love, with an adorable baby and a teen girl with an old soul.
Jeremy and Natalie’s present romance is somewhat pushed into the background, but the history and baggage between them compensate for that. And they always seem so synchronized, with that “weird energy” between them; the author smartly shows how they’re both dealing with personal and family crises that often take precedence over the romantic relationship.
There’s lots of family drama – the child’s sickness, a marriage in crisis, terminal illness, a dysfunctional family with an unyielding patriarch - but in the end these people really love and care for each other.
I loved baby Oliver, I don’t remember reading a child who is so well written and real, he's really adorable and sweet. Lili, a teenager key to the plot, is also a great character, as well as Nick and Sam.