This was such a sweet story and so beautifully written. Thank you so much for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 3.5 stars

My favorite part of this story was the dual timeline between grandmother and granddaughter. I loved this story so much, and appreciated the risks the author took including some magical elements within the plot.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

Fiddler's ". . .matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match! find me a find, catch me a catch. . ." stayed with me throughout this read, despite Sara's own chagrin about the character Yente. Hard to get around that high profile when it comes to matchmakers.

From the very start of this story, I was looking for the matches, and still was surprised at the ways Sara and Abby reconciled this mixed blessing in their lives. Sometimes the back and forth POV jumps in time don't work for me, but in this book it was smooth and added to the narrative flow. Connecting with the characters was easy, and I appreciated the author's note at the end. I had no idea that matchmaking had so many workers that a union was formed!

As for the end, totally satisfied. Would enjoy a sequel to this one!

A Sincere Thank You to Lynda Cohen Loigman, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.

When I first read the premise of this book, I wasn’t sure if it would be my cup of tea. I was pleasantly surprised that I ended up absolutely loving this book!

I thoroughly enjoyed this multi-generational story of two matchmakers. Like many, I love the tradition of Jewish matchmakers and for good or bad think of the song from 'Fiddler on the Roof'. Sarah has to fight the men in her community for the ability to use her unconventional and possibly magical gift. I thoroughly enjoyed her spirit and her ability to use this gift to aid others.

The present day storyline centers around her granddaughter, Abby. While grieving the loss of her grandmother, Abby stumbles across some of her grandmother's old journals. As she learns more about her grandmother, she reconsiders her life direction, discovering that she just might have her own gift.

I love this story of two strong women and their pursuit to help others find happiness.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author/publisher through Netgalley and was not required to write a review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Today I read a book that felt like it was a cross between a historical novel and a rom-com. It was a fun entertaining story that kept me entertained until the end.

The Matchmaker's Gift written by Lynda Cohen Loigman definitely fits the criteria for the historical fiction genre, but because you are reading about matchmaking and love it reads like a rom com.

Using the dual timeline approach to writing this novel, Loigman follows Sara Glikman as she comes from Europe to the Lower Eastside of the New York. Arriving with her family in New York City as a young girl, Sara has already shown her matchmaking abilities on the boat creating a shidduch for her older sister. As she grows up she finds creative ways to bring together the couples she knows will love each other and stayed married forever. This causes problems in the neighborhood as it takes away business from the Shadchanim. These older men try to stop her but Sara is a strong young woman and stands up to them.

In the alternating plot line we meet Sara's granddaughter, Abby, starts reading the journals her grandmother left her. Abby and her sister grew up with Sara and their mother, Beverly. They are the product of an ugly divorce and Abby becomes a divorce lawyer to help women going through divorce not have the same experience her mother had. Growing with her grandmother's stories, she never really paid attention. Now as she reads through the accounts of the matches, she begins to question whether instead of helping couples end their marriages, she should be helping couples find true love.

3.5⭐️

1910, Sara Glikman has been told that as a woman she could not be a matchmaker. Most matchmakers are older men who only care about the money made from matches and not whether the couple is actually in love. Sara saw something else though…when she found a match, she saw a light around the couple. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara decides that she’s tired of hiding and is ready to start matchmaking full time.

Abby, Sara’s granddaughter, has taken a bit of a different route through life and has become a divorce attorney. Fortunately, matchmaking is in her blood. She only needs to decide whether or not to embrace her grandmother’s belief in matchmaking.

This was a really sweet story. The characters and storyline were very interesting. I loved hearing about Sara and Abby through dual timelines.

I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion

Wow, wow, wow!
This book was absolutely magical…

The dual POV/timeline was the perfect way to tell Abby and Sara’s stories! Although they are living in very different times the underlying themes really build a strong connection between the two characters and the stories of their lives.

The writing was beautiful!! I can’t say enough great things about this book! A must read!

Wow! This isn’t my usual type of novel, but the stories of Sara and Abby are so well entwined that it was captivating. I will definitely be recommending to fellow book lovers! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

I always seem to love a book that has a little unexpected magic in it, and The Matchmaker's Gift was no exception! I loved how the book went back and forth in time, between a grandmother and granddaughter, both learning that being a matchmaker in their Jewish community is what they are meant to do. Sara came to America many decades before and learned that matchmaking was her gift. But the men in the town who were also matchmakers did not believe she should be doing it, especially because she was unmarried. Her granddaughter, Abby, is a successful divorce lawyer who has recently been seeing things she can't quite believe--like how a client and her husband should absolutely not divorce because they were meant to be together. This book was so sweet and wonderful and I never wanted it to end! Getting to watch Sara fight for the right to be a matchmaker and Abby learned to accept who she is was just so beautiful. This is one of my top reads in 2023!!

The Matchmaker’s Gift follows Sara and her granddaughter, Abby in alternating timelines. We meet Sara as a young girl in 1910, the year she first stumbles upon her talent for making matches. We then follow her journey into adulthood, watching her fight against the old fashioned patriarchy which is both intimidated and envious of Sara’s natural abilities.

In the nineties we meet Abby, Sara’s granddaughter. Sara works with couples as well, although ironically she makes her living as a divorce attorney. Always close with her grandmother, Sara is deeply saddened when she passes. When she goes to organize her grandmother’s belongings, Abby discovers handwritten accounts of Sara’s matches that continued long after anyone had suspected. The deeper Abby gets into her grandmother’s history, the more she respects her gift. But when Abby starts to feel a similar calling, she too has to make the hard decision between destiny and dissent.

The Matchmaker’s Gift is a magical read with feminist undertones. Although both Sara and Abby came of age years apart, the reader quickly sees how their journeys are more alike than they are different. I read this story as an audio and had one nitpick regarding young Sara’s narration vs older Sara. Young Sara had no accent, while older Sara did. It didn’t take away from the story itself, I just found the lack of accent in earlier years to seem inconsistent.

All in all, The Matchmaker’s Gift is a book about finding the right fit that’s a true perfect match for an appreciative reader.

The Matchmaker's Gift was one of my favorite reads of 2022. What could be better than a book that encompasses everything love is and can do?

Sara is a special character who I fell in love with immediately. The patriarchal jerks who tried to tear her down never broke her spirit. She knew true love and basked in her ability to bring two people together.

Abby also stole my heart. I found the irony of Abby's divorce lawyer career completely in tune with the rest of the book. I loved it when Abby finally found the heart to tell her jerk of a boss to shove it. When she took on Sara's work, I cried.

I award The Matchmaker's Gift a full 5 out of 5 stars. I encourage every single cynic out there to give this one a read. It will make you believe in love all over again.

A highly enjoyable pastiche of love and history, The Matchmaker's Gift brings together romance and the past in an irresistable way. Perfectly suitable for book clubs and even for younger people about what it costs to make decisions about love.

I have nothing but praise for this book! I loved it so much. I love all the work the author put into the research and making Sara feel so real to me. Dual timelines that move seamlessly and keep you reading for more on both stories. Certainly wishing I had a good Yiddish dictionary but I figured it all out because it made sense and it was all so beautiful.
Seriously grab this one up. I loved it!!

This historical fiction story is a magically joyful Jewish story that takes us out of our typical WWII book club reading with a dual timeline set in the 1910s and 1990s.

Loigman weaves in the history of Jewish matchmaking, but it couldn't be further from the Fiddler on the Roof interpretation. She chose this period because of its rich matchmaking history, with over 5,000 matchmakers in New York then.

Sara holds a unique talent for matchmaking, but in 1910, this was a male-dominated occupation. So she hides her abilities even when she sees the sparks fly between matches and does what she can to matchmake in secret.

The reader is gifted a dual timeline experience with her great-great-granddaughter, Abby, discovering Sara's journal entries.

Abby is a successful divorce attorney who shares a few of Sara's talents but divides assets and ends marriages as part of her job. As Abby learns more about her family's history, she must fulfill a perplexing promise that Sara once made that could, ultimately, end her career.

A hidden treasure as a point of storytelling in historical fiction is a well-weathered trope that Loigman leaned into hesitantly. She effectively freshens it up with vibrant storytelling in both timelines and lots of clever nostalgia for the 1990s.

The author discusses this book with us and shares her extensive matchmaking research. We also learn how the quarantine sparked her creativity in unlikely ways. Loigman's telling of this fruitful season for her career is just as magical as the book is. It just might inspire a fruitful season of your own.

This cozy feminist-forward selection will resonate with new and seasoned historical fiction readers. I'm confident this will be one of your favorite books of the year, and since I've read all of Loigman's books, I can vouch that this is her best book yet.

The Matchmaker's Gift follows Abby, a divorce lawyer, who is dealing with the death of her grandmother, a professional matchmaker. The books switches perspective from Abby's "present day" 1994 life to her grandmother's experiences starting in 1910 and her immigration to the US. I liked the premise of this book and was excited to give it a try!

I absolutely loved it! I thought it struck such a good balance of interesting characters, time periods, interweaving threads, and managed to be uplifting without being trite. I read this super quickly because I enjoyed it so much and wanted to see what happened, without really knowing where it was going. I loved both Abby and her grandmother and liked seeing both of the perspectives as the years went on. I liked that Abby didn't receive a diary from her grandmother like SO MANY other books because she got to fill in the gaps herself and it doesn't suggest that her grandmother spent time writing literal novels about everything that happened to her. Small nitpick but that always annoys me.

Abby and her grandmother are Jewish and I liked seeing how they related to their faith and culture over the years. and in different circumstances. I enjoyed that Abby was wary about love but wasn't overly negative about it. I thought that the side characters were fun and the matches memorable. I kept forgetting that the "present" day was set in 1994 until Abby had to check the landline messages or look through the rolodex to call someone. I'm assuming that this time period was set so that the grandmother was able to experience a lot of important events at the beginning of the 1900s. Fair enough, and it was fun to read about the 90s.

Overall, I had an incredible time with this book and recommend it to absolutely anyone. 5 stars from me! Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Is finding true love a calling or a curse?

This is a dual timeline story, 1910 New York and 1994 Manhatten. In 1910 Sara Gilkman has the gift of matchmaking and has to try to find her place in a male dominated profession. When Sara dies, her Grandaughter, Abby inherits her handwritten journals recording details of her matches. The story goes between the two timelines giving us the stories of Sara's matchmaking and Abby's profession as a divorce attorney. This is a feel good story that was a delight to read.

I was given a copy of the book by the publisher and NetGalley and my opinion is my own.

🌙𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲🌙
THE MATCHMAKER’S GIFT
🤍𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗿𝗲: magical realism
𝗠𝘆 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: 4.5 ⭐️ 💫
📖 297 pages

What a lovely, refreshing read. Thank you @netgalley, @StMartinsPress & @lloigman for the #gifted copy of this stunning 🤩 hardback- can we have a moment for that cover!!?😍✨💍💒🌸♥️

I loved everything about this from the dual timelines/POV to the magic surrounding the storyline. I was instantly enthralled and couldn’t get enough. I loved how easily the writing flowed and fell in love with both of the MC’s, Sara and Abby.

⚠️ may contain spoilers ahead:

The story follows Sara Glikman from the early 1900’s-1994 and her journey to becoming the town’s matchmaker. She however had to do it in secret as being an unmarried woman was frowned upon for this profession. Fast forward two generations later, you meet her granddaughter, Abby, quite literally in the most opposite profession, a divorce lawyer in NY. After Sara passes away, Abby inherits some of her old journals. She soon realizes she may have more in common with her grandmother than she realized…

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂:
* love a matchmaking plot 🪄
* believe in true love and fate 💖
* love pickles 🥒
* enjoy a glimpse into Jewish 🕍 heritage
* can relate to having a difficult boss (I despised Diana 😡)

Thank you also for my signed #bookplate and the pickling kit! 🥒

➡️ Swipe for the full synopsis 📖

#historicalfiction #magicalrealism #romance #TheMatchmakersGift #SMPinfluencers #fantasy #Jewish #fiction #hardcover #bookaddict #whattoreadnext #botwxbs #bookcollector #booksaremylife #booksonbooks #cozycorner

This was beautifully written and a great read.

I received an arc from Goodreads for my honest review. 😀

Abby is a divorce lawyer who doesn’t believe in love. Her grandmother Sarah is a matchmaker who only made true love matches. When Sarah passes away, Abby begins to see that she has her grandmother’s gift. This book was a wonderful and fun read. I enjoyed the different perspectives and time shifts between Abby and Sarah. It gave a wonderful depth to the characters and to show the differences in the time periods.