After Jessica loses her dream job as a personal chef in the big time city, she takes a job out of desperation as cook/housekeeper/caregiver in small town USA for Elaine, who is recovering from a stroke. While there, Jessica quickly learns that working in a small town comes with it's own challenges but she slowly finds herself falling more and more in love with the life she is living as she develops relationships with those around her.

This was a fun, quick and easy novel to read that gave me the "feel goods." It felt like a warm cup of hot coco on a winters day where you found yourself smiling with each passing chapter. There was nothing ground breaking about the story, but so many times after reading such heavy stuff, I find myself in desperate need of something to warm my belly like this book does.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for my review and honest opinions.

Refreshing. Hopeful. Second chances. The perfect ingredients for a sweet and delightful story.

Jessie is a professional personal chef, wrongly fired from her job who needs to leave the past behind her once again and start over. She takes a job, temporarily she thinks, in a small town to work for Elaine who is recovering from a stroke and a recent fall. Jessie is embraced by Elaine’s friends, the Scrappy Ladies, while she is in rehab and recovering, when friendship is a rare commodity for Jessie. Jess becomes caretaker of Elaine’s friends while she recovers, her house, and a neglected neighbor girl who visits every day to play the piano, and takes a neighbor teen under her wing as her sous chef. Jessie is their “hope”. And then there is Nick, the local coach where she is in jeopardy of losing her heart. Can Jessie heal and find happiness?

While this is a sweet story that keeps the reader going, it’s pretty saccharin at times. I do love how Jessie took care of others by feeding them and didn’t realize how much they needed her. Jessie had great empathy and insight to Christopher, the teen with down syndrome and to Sienna, the teen showed was neglected but had potential. The author seemed to cover it all with just really good characters and a “Hallmark” ending. This is a pleasant read and will leave you feeling hopeful and believing in the goodness of others. I enjoyed it.

Many thanks to #netgalley #thegatheringtable #kathrynspringer for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I've read a few of Springer's books in the past, and I enjoyed them, so I was looking forward to this one.

I liked the rapport between the main characters, and they were well developed and relatable. They also exemplified the helpful nature often found in those living in small towns (and it's even complete with the stereotypical nosey neighbors!) I enjoyed the twist at the end. There are romance and religious angles to the story, but I didn't find either one overpowering.

Received a copy of this book for review. Overall it is a good read for me. Love the chemistry between the main characters. Love all the characters. What I love is that each of them does make a difference to the story as it developed. Like to read how the characters In the story are interrelated to each other. It make the story more exciting to read. The setting of the story is nice and is fit nicely to the story.Story plot are well penned out, with a slight twist to it in the end.

I absolutely adore Kathryn Springer's novels. They are good for the heart and soul while displaying some humor. Worth the read.

This was an excellent story! I enjoyed how the author interacted the different characters throughout the story so you felt as it they were all important to the story. Hopefully once the book is actually published the corrections will be fixed.

I used to read a lot of Christian Fiction and this book exemplifies the good and bad of the genre. The good is that because the authors can't develop a romance by having the characters fall in lust with each other, they actually need to make them talk to each other and to learn each other's strengths and weaknesses. They have to be attracted to the personality, not the body. There are two romances in this story and while the characters do find each other to be physically attractive, that physical attraction is not the main draw. I also like the fact that one of those couples is "mature".

The bad is that sometimes authors can't seem to resist putting in a "salvation scene", a scene where one character (or more) accepts Jesus which changes his or her life and then finds the problems of life in this world to be resolved. Also, some of the plot turns seem a bit, hmmm, well, not quite likely. In The Gathering Table Jess is hired over the phone to be a live-in cook and housekeeper for a lady who had a stroke. Ok, I'll give that a pass. Then, when she gets to town she is told the lady won't be discharged from rehab for a while, due to a fall, but that she is to go ahead and move in. I can accept that. However, never do we see Jess picking up the phone and calling her employer, or going by the nursing home to meet her. Nope, she stays at the house and cooks for the neighbors.

I liked the way the characters looked out for each other, the way they learned that three of them had a lot in common and the way the character with Down Syndrome was made into a real person rather than a caricature.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley. Grade: B.

This delightful, charming story is the first I’ve read of Kathryn Springer – and definitely won’t be the last. Her characters are well developed, strong individuals who have good values and care about others. They are just the kind of people I’d want for friends. Reading this book felt like when you’ve been gone a long time and the comfort of finally being home.

After being fired unfairly from what she felt was her “dream job” as a personal chef, Jess finds herself in the small town of Winsome Lake, Wisconsin, where she accepted a job to be the cook, housekeeper and caregiver for Elaine, who has been in rehab recovering from a stroke. It’s a far cry from the career path she’d been on, however, she had nowhere else to go. Upon arriving at Elaine’s house, she is met by friends of Elaine who advise Elaine took a fall and is now out of rehab but is in the hospital.

Upon settling into the guest room, Jess soon learns that small-town living is nothing at all like the big cities she is used to. Elaine’s friends and neighbors are frequent visitors; she wakes early in the morning to find a local teenager practicing the piano downstairs and Nick who lives down the street returns Elaine’s cat, he’d been caring for in her absence, and he’s also taking care of her yard, although the backyard is a mixture of flowers and herbs that have taken over the yard and despite neglect, seemed to be flourishing. Jess would have been long gone, had she somewhere else to go. What an unexpected development when she finds her heart softening towards the town and the people in it. It is scary that this place and these people growing in her heart, could possibly begin to feel like home.

As this intriguing story unfolds and Elaine eventually returns home there are long held secrets revealed that will change the course of several lives. This is a beautifully written story of faith and hope that life will turn out as it should, despite many bumps along the way.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy of this book. All comments are my own.

This is small town at it's best! When everyone watches out for their neighbors and everyone take care of each other.

Jessica is a personal chef that's lost her job, unfairly, and on a whim answers a newspaper ad from Elaine for a live in chef. When she arrives, she finds out that Elaine has suffered a stroke but wants her to move in and stay until she comes home from rehab. Then a whole revolving door of neighbors start showing up and Jessica feeds them and the whole sense of community takes over. Soon she's involved in the lives of so many townsfolk. Elaine comes home with a slew of her own secrets that she shares with Jessica, too.

It's a sweet story, small town, interesting neighbors, a little romance.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a temporary, digital ARC in return for my review.