Losing a parent is hard. Whether it is by natural means or by way of disease. Comfort can be found in many of ways. The Potluck club was a way for the characters in the book to heal and grieve in their own way. This part of the club deals with Amy. She has lost her mom and in dealing with that she meets Trent and Liv. This book offers hope for those that are grieving and tips of how to get support from friends.

This book is about 4 women (Amy, Nichole, Bridget and Hazel) who met at the hospital cafeteria while one of their parent was Having treatment for cancer. Their friendship ensues. The book mostly follows how the characters deals with Their grief. It has sadness, romance and happiness. Great read! It is not as sad as I thought it was going to be with the description. Thank you Kensington and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my own opinion.

The Sunday Potluck Club is a great read. I enjoyed it mainly because my friends and I definitely bond over meals, but also because I could relate to having a parent with cancer. When my dad was diagnosed with cancer, I had no one to talk to that could relate to my situation, but in this book, these ladies have found each other and are brought together because of their unfortunate situations. This is a quick read and surprisingly lighthearted after you get past the beginning. It does feel like a lot has transpired in the beginning and at first, I thought I had missed something, but I still enjoyed reading it. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this read.

This story touched me in so many different ways. A circle of friends brought together by need when each of them was broken. They use the worst experiences in their lives to help others face the same pain. The idea to bond over meals has always been the way a family heals. Secrets and pain are easier to face when stomachs and hearts are full and you are surrounded by like souls. Melissa Storm could have picked any number of individuals for her community of healing, I'm just glad I read this book.

Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley. This is a short introduction to the book which will be released at a later date. I enjoyed this short story about two very different women drawn together on a cancer ward in mutual grief. Their friendship grows and out of their respective friendship they each reach to begin their lives anew. A very sweet story.

This is the story of four women - Bridget, Amy, Hazel and Nichole - who met while each had a parent in the cancer ward of the local hospital. During that time, they started the Sunday Potluck Club which would be hosted at one woman's home weekly and everyone else would need to bring something.

Amy recently lost her mom and is getting ready to get back to work as a second-grade teacher. One of her students is extremely withdrawn when she arrives as a new student to the school. Bridget volunteers at a local animal shelter and decides to do a Valentine's Day Adoption Event.

For the most part, the book seems to revolve around Amy and Bridget's stories while Hazel and Nichole are interspersed throughout. It was a good, quick, lighthearted read once you get past the first 50 pages or so.

The Sunday Potluck Club is a sweet and uplifting book about loss, grief and healing. The book centers on Amy who has lost her mother to cancer. I thought it was going to be a sad book, but instead I found a heartwarming and positive book about four friends banding together and trying to heal and move on from loss. I look forward to reading Bridget's story which I believe is out in Sept /Oct.

Thank you Kensington Books and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm sad that I only got an excerpt of this novel. I was really enjoying getting to know the characters and following along. I look forward to reading full the version when I can get my hands on it!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this sample! :)

Another wonderful book by Melissa Storm! This book covers everything from death, grief, recovery, friendship to love. Ms. Storm's talented skills at developing believable characters and heartfelt plots are certainly on display here. I received an ARC of the book and have voluntarily chosen to write this review. I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed the book and can wholeheartedly recommend it.

This is a good book! I enjoyed the four main characters in the Sunday Potluck Club and their very distinct personalities. Their friendships were really well developed and the author very deftly maintained each character’s uniqueness as their lives were interwoven.

I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily providing my honest review. I found the book very entertaining and believable. I expect there will be three more books in this series and I am looking forward to reading them all.

Amy, Nichole, Bridget and Hazel all had family members that were sick in the hospital and they formed a friendship around their pain. Amy had lost her mother and was working through the pain. She goes back to teaching to try to forget the pain. She has an accident and meets Trent which is a father to one of her students, Olivia. They all become friends but Amy has a crush on Trent and he has a crush on her.
I enjoyed this book. I think it would be good for someone that has lost someone in their life see there is a future ahead.

This was only the excerpt version of the book that I read. I didn’t check back, to download the full version.

I was a little confused by all the names and stories right off the bat.
I heard this was going to be a series, but from reading these few chapters, I will not be requesting/buying the other books.
Not the best writing style, a bit choppy.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eBook copy in exchange for an honest review.

Friends supporting friends through grief was an interesting idea, but none of the characters really engaged me except Olivia. I wanted it to have a greater sense of place--what is living in Alaska really like? My feeling was this one was just okay. Copy from NetGalley.

first time reading this author about this fun loving book about friendship, mourning lives lost and finding yourself. highly recommend any book by Melissa Storm

Thank you to NetGalley, Goodreads and Kensington Books for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was a bit leery when I first got a hold of this book. I was expecting it to be depressing based on the synopsis. It was anything but that.

This book is about a group of women that started a friendship while taking care of their parents that had cancer. All but one woman has lost their parent by the time this book picks up. The book follows one of the gals who lost her mother, but you still get to learn about all the other women involved.

This is an easy and fun read. You can’t help but fall in love with the different characters and their stories.

There’s love. There’s laughter. There’s tears. But it’s all joy.

Liked the taste of this one so much I bought a copy!

This is the emotional, fun, heart breaking and healing journey of four engaging women sharing loss, love and food that feeds the soul. Was a great read!

THE SUNDAY POTLUCK CLUB is the first book in the Sunday Potluck Club series. Each will be a stand-alone romance focused on one of the four friends who met and became a support friendship circle while each walked the cancer path with one their parents.

I loved this story. I loved the support, camaraderie, and raw truthfulness of dealing with life during the time of cancer, remission, survivor’s guilt, trying to live while others are dying or dealing with death, coping with loss, celebrating life, denial, anger,… I loved that these women are able to reach beyond themselves while in the darkest days of their lives.

I loved the uplifting lessons that everyone grieves in their own way. Grief has its own timeline for each person. Ask for what you need, without excuses. People need their friends (including the four-footed kind).

Given the subject matter, you know the story is emotional. I will repeat: the story is EMOTIONAL. Bring your tissues; you’ll need them for tears of sorrow and joy.

I wish I had had a group to turn to when I was the support for my sister as she was going through chemotherapy. It has been four years (almost to the day) since she gained her wings, but I still go through the stages and have no close circle that I feels understands. Reading this story, I found four friends who do understand. I am really excited that there will be more books in this series. I will get to reunite with my tribe in August!

Note: While I received this book as a gifted ARC via NetGalley, my opinions are my own and are given freely.

Title: THE SUNDAY POTLUCK CLUB
Series: The Sunday Potluck Club #1
Category /Genre: Contemporary Romance
Recommended for: 14+ due to adult content
Grammar/editing: book received as an unedited ARC / errors excused
Received from: Melissa Storm

**REVIEW OF EXCERPT ONLY**

When I first read the blurb about this book, I thought this sounded like a good premise. I like books about women pulling together and overcoming bad things in their lives. This book had a lot of promise but it didn't really live up to it, unfortunately.

The characters were introduced to the reader in a very rushed kind of way. Trying to figure out who was who I found quite difficult. I didn't think that the main characters were particularly supportive of each other either, which was a surprise. It was almost as if they were rushing through each funeral of their parents so they could then get on with their lives? It was very odd. It would have been better if each character had been introduced slowly e.g. perhaps taking a chapter each, alternating or something? I didn't find myself all that emotionally invested in these ladies at all, which is a real shame. I thought I would really like it and go on to read the full book but alas, that isn't what happened, sorry.

3 stars from me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books.

2.75 stars.

This was unfortunately a bit of a mixed bag for me. I requested it because the cover caught my eye, and I liked the idea of a group of friends who meet under unusual life circumstances celebrating their friendship through Sunday potluck get togethers. Unfortunately, that wasn't the story that was delivered (in my opinion). I think there were maybe two potluck gatherings in the whole book, and the friends didn't spend any time talking. Although I personally didn’t connect with any of the characters, I do wish that we got more page time with the four friends. They’re all different ages and going through different stages of their grief, and I enjoyed what I saw of them together. I appreciated that the author stuck to the friends allowing each other to deal with their grief in their own way and time. These were very realistic portrayals of how people experience big losses in their lives and how they cope with that loss. Everyone handles situations in their own way and to me that was the most believable part of the story.

I think the story would’ve been much stronger if it had a bigger focus on the friendship and grief aspects, as I initially expected the story to have, rather than on the romance because that really didn’t work for me and it’s what made me want to skip through big chunks of it to get to the end (I didn't though).

The Sunday Potluck Club is told through Amy’s perspective. She wasn’t a particularly endearing character from the start and that was one of the struggles I encountered with enjoying this. Bridget was the other friend in the group that also got more, but we don’t get her perspective at all. I understand that Bridget was going through the most recent loss with the passing of her mother at the start of the book, but her arc so almost no development until the very end when drastic measures had to be taken. While she wasn’t particularly likable either, I thought her character more interesting than Amy’s. I was also disappointed with Amy’s character arc because we didn’t really learn anything about her except for the fact that she’s struggling to process the grief from the loss of her mother. Oh, and the fact that she’s obsessed with Trent, one of her student’s father, who she literally meets by accident.

I'm normally a big fan of romance in books, but I was not a fan of this one, and I was surprised by how much of the storyline it took up. After a ‘meet-cute’ that in my opinion wasn’t particularly cute, Amy pretty much falls into insta-love with Trent, and I think the feeling is pretty much mutual. Turns out, Trent is also grieving the sort of recent loss of his wife. It’s bad enough that it was insta-love, but the author mostly tells us about their amazing connection rather than showing it to us. In my opinion, there were zero sparks flying and I just didn’t get their romance and how it was so instant for both of them. I think the only good thing about their “relationship” was how much of Trent’s daughter we saw. She was a precocious and perceptive little girl and made the scenes between the two of them much more enjoyable.

Overall, I feel like this book had a lot of potential, but the characters were underdeveloped and the romance that played such a big role in the story fell completely short for me. You’d think a book about friends grieving the loss of their parents would make me feel at least a little weepy and emotional, but unfortunately, I felt none of that. It was a very quick read though, so at least there’s that!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Very beautiful

I keep hearing about this book and that is no surprise. This is women’s fiction, and not quite like her usual work. But very beautiful. Moving. It’s about friendship, but also about dealing with loss. It could have easily become depressing, but it didn’t. It was easy-to-read and not too sad. You know, not heavy. Five stars from me and well-deserved.