The Next Best Day by Sharon Sala Katie and Sam are two of the most engaging characters that deserve all the happiness in their world. The two are perfect for one another. There was so much packed into this story that it seemed to be a whole series within itself. Did not much like the side story of Mark and his wife, felt disconnected and detracted from the main story. Borden’s Gap could be an interesting place to develop into a new series.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book

This book was so engrossing, I read well into the wee hours of the night. The story had the perfect blend of emotions and the storytelling was amazing. A heartfelt story. I loved it!!

Katie has been left at the altar. As a former foster child, she has had difficulty trusting others, so this has been hard for her. Soon after returning to her job as a teacher, she is faced with a tragedy. This causes her to rethink her situation. She decides to take a new position in a small town, Borden's Gap.

Sam is the police chief of Borden's Gap. He is a single father raising twin girls. He lives across the street from Katie. As Katie heals, she and Sam grow closer, but can either of them love again?

Know that this might be tough for some to read in spots because Katie, who dealt with so much as a child, throws herself between a school shooter and her students, saving them but being wounded in the process, She's recovered physically, but she's dealing with the PTSD and it doesn't help that her fiance left her at the altar. And she's still coping with having been in the foster system. SO she moves - from New Mexico to Tennessee where she's teaching once again. Her neighbor, Sam, the chief of police, is raising Evie and Beth, his sweet little girls alone as their mom died at their birth. The two of them (well all four of them) bond and slowly their shields (because Sam has one as well) come down and their friendship turns to love. It;'s not easy for Katie but well, no spoilers. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Sala's storytelling is good and this one, once you get past the school scene,. will warm the heart.

Oh, my goodness, what an awesome book! I think I felt every feel there was to feel. I think you will too.
I don’t know how anyone could not love Katie. Her life is certainly a story in itself. This story covers lots of real-life situations, which is where you will get a lot of your feels. It’s scary to pick up and move your life, but Katies handles it all. How lucky that she moves in across the street from Sam, Beth and Evie. I love them also, as I do all the good characters in this story. I would love to make another trip to Bordern’s Gap and see how my new friends are doing. I received this book from NetGalley, but my opinion is my own.

The Next Best Day
Sharon Sala
November 8, 2022

The latest Sharon Sala novel is excellent. It is a wonderful combination of suspense, family issues, and romance. The plot surrounds the life of Katie McGrath. She is a first grade teacher who loves her trade. Her wedding is approaching and she is thrilled that she and prospective husband, Mark Roman will soon be married. She teaches at Saguaro Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her best friend and teaching partner at school is her maid of honor, Lila Reece. All sounds too good to be true and it is.
To refrain from spoilers that is all I can say. I can highly recommend that as a fan of Sharon Sala it is her best and I have read and enjoyed many.
The Next Best Day will be published on November 8, 2022 by Sourcebooks. I appreciate their allowing me to read and review The Next Best Day via NetGalley. It truly is a page-turner that I completed reading in a few days.
Katie McGrath's on-edge story was one I wanted to end in a delightful and sublime fashion like many of Sala's do.
Do pick up a copy of The Next Best Day and by all means enjoy!

I was sad when the Blessings, Georgia series by Sharon Sala ended, but Borden's Gap is now starting and based on this first book, it will be another great series!

Katie survived a terrible trauma at her last school, and she's got PTSD due to it. She feels that the only way to move forward with her teaching career is to relocate from the large city to a small town, and finds her place in Borden's Gap.

I enjoyed being introduced to the citizens of Borden's Gap, discovering how will be the main players and watching Katie interact with them. Sam and his twins Evie and Beth are just adorable. This is a clean, sweet, small-town romance and I'm looking forward to future books in the series.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book, but my opinions are my own.

Let me start by saying that I am a huge Sharon Sala fan. Saying that, sometimes you can have overload. And this was it .
I loved Katie's character. She was a fighter and a survivor. Dumped as a baby , she was raised in the foster system. When she aged out she put herself they school working two jobs. She becomes a teacher. She settles down in her job and her life becoming engaged to be married.
She is left at the alter. Her fiancee married the boss's daughter in Vegas and leaves her alone at the church. She is heart broken but gets on with her life.
Then comes the school shooting. She is caught in the hallway with two of her students when the gunman takes aim. She throws them down, covers them up and is shoot twice in the back. She saves the boys and is eventually sent home to recover. Except recovery isn't that easy because she is suffering from PTSD.
At this point you think, wow, this girl has been thru a lot. But it doesn't end here.
She decides to start fresh somewhere else and moves to a small town in Tennessee.
Things look up when she moves in next door to the town police chief, who happens to be hot, widowed and the father of two adorable little girls. This storyline was great. I loved Sam and Evie and Beth. I loved how they became friends and then lovers, all the while taking his two daughters into consideration.
But life doesn't run that smoothly. As a teacher, you deal with children and they're problems. So in her new class she deals with parental abuse and child abuse both physical and sexual.
All topics are hard to deal with and should not in my opinion been put together all in one book.
So in this book you dealt with school shootings, PTSD, sexual abuse and physical abuse of both a wife and child.
And this doesn't include the 2nd storyline that follows her ex fiancee and how his life turns out after dumping her at the alter. He married, unknowingly, into a family of drug dealers, who all get murdered.
Too much!!! Overload!!!
3⭐⭐⭐

This is another good book by Ms Sala. The storyline of love and loss and attempting to start over are both heartwarming and heart rendering. The author does a great job of describing Katie’s feelings that led to her relocation as well as how hard it was for her to start over. I am a bit mystified as to why the story continued to follow the man who left her at the altar. It added nothing to the story and was actually a big distracting. I received an arc of this book from NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.

Sharon Sala is an automatic buy for me as I love all of her books, and this book tugged at my heartstrings. Katie has had a rough start from birth on but she has always persevered and achieved her goals including becoming a teacher. When her fiance leaves her on their wedding day, it’s just one more strike against her and my heart aches for her. As she tries to get her life back on track, a gunman storms her school and she is shot while protecting her students. As a former teacher, this was so well written as it is exactly what I always feared would happen in the world we live in and how I hoped I would stand up for my “kids”. This was the final straw for Katie and she decides she cannot stay in Albuquerque so she applies for teaching jobs in other locations. When she decides on a very small town in Tennessee and moves it is the best thing she has ever done for her peace of mind. Her next door neighbor, Sam, is a widower with twin six year old daughters who immediately touch Katie’s heart. I love how Sam is so thoughtful not only to Katie, but so loving to his daughters and I could not put this book down. Thank you Sharon Sala for sharing your stories with us!

The Next Best Day is Sharon Sala’s newest standalone sweet romance, in the same category as her Blessings series.

Katie McGrath is a 29-year-old first grade teacher in Albuquerque who learns on her wedding day, immediately before the service, that her groom eloped with another woman the day before. Then six weeks later her world is shattered when she is shot while protecting her students during a school shooting. Katie physically recovers but suffers from PTSD so she decides to relocate to a small-town Borden's Gap, Tennessee.

Katie is immediately attracted to her handsome widowed neighbor, Police Chief Sam Youngblood, and his adorable 6-year-old twin daughters. Sam is a perfect hero who brings Katie out of her shell while he waits for her emotions to stabilize. Many scenes take place at the school or involve Katie’s teaching duties. There are several subplots that involve sensitive topics but they are handled well and the victims are able to overcome their circumstances. The author ensures that the villains are dealt with.

There are many minor characters and multiple subplots in The Next Best Day, but the author provides plenty of descriptions so that it’s easy for the reader to keep track. There is a small amount of situational profanity, and the romantic scenes are closed-door. This is one of the top two books that I have read this year, and I urge all romance readers to get a copy of The Next Best Day. I would award it 6 stars (out of 5) if possible!

I received an advance review copy (ARC) from NetGalley and SourceBooks-Casablanca for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is a first-time author for me. I really love her written.
Katie McGarth life has been hard, when she was a baby, she was found next to a garbage can and grew up in foster care.
Sam Youngblood is raising twin six old daughters alone.
Katie moves to Borden's Gap for a new start on her life. She is an elementary school teacher and loves her job and Sam and his girls live across the road from her home. This is a heartwarming story of Katie learn to deal with all her heartache and learning to trust in love again.
If you love romance in a small town this is a great book for you.

Enjoyable, pleasant read. Typical formula for Sala about 2nd chances. Loved the location and how well it was described. Sala always has some type conflict and/or mystery and was no different with this book.

This book touched on some subjects that were triggering for me so I did not finish it. I thought the writing was fantastic and would recommend to anyone that doesn't have triggers like mine.

This story centers around Katie McGrath. A woman that has had to overcome adversity from the moment she was born.
First, being abandoned at birth, then spending her life in foster care until 18 years old, going through college, being left at the altar, getting injured during a school shooting and lastly, suffering from PTSD.
A move from Albuquerque to Border Gap, TN, might be her saving grace. A new school, a new town, and meeting her neighbor , Sam Youngblood, the widower Police Chief and his twin daughters might finally heal her.
That said, while the story was heartbreaking , it dragged quite a bit and at times made this reader lose interest.
In addition, the subplot about Katie’s former fiancé, his wife and her money laundering father detracted instead of enhancing the main storyline.
I was entrusted a copy of this book by Netgalley. The opinions expressed are solely my own.

Although the opening is intense, involving not just getting left at the altar but being seriously wounded in a terrifying school shooting, this one has the usual Sala themes of hope and healing. I must admit, as a former teacher, albeit one who was never involved in any lock down other than for weather, the section involving the school shooter left me shaken. Sadly, while this is fiction, this is also the reality nowadays for too many students and teachers. That Katie McGrath is able to survive not just these events but a childhood of being shunted from foster home to foster home and abuse is amazing. Even more so, she seems to be a wonderful teacher, kind and caring, and, as one character describes her, nice. You'll root for her. Katie is a survivor in all senses of the word.

Fresh starts is another common Sala theme and this one involves not just Katie, who moves after the shooting incident, but her neighbor Det. Sam Youngblood and his two young, twin daughters, Evie and Beth. He's raised them alone after his wife died giving birth to them. Like Katie, he's opening up to more and they are immediately attracted, particularly as Katie proves adept at not just telling the twins apart easily but sensing their moods and needs. How these two wounded souls come together forms the basis of the story and it's a good one.

The only jarring aspect of the book, as in jarring because it took me out of the story, was the side-story following Katie's almost husband, Mark. Well, that and a sad acknowledgement that Sam simply couldn't be that perfect, nor could Katie.... but I liked them just the way they are. It's occasionally nice to read about people who aren't twisted up by inner demons (as if Katie's PTSD from the shooting isn't enough). Bottom line, I thoroughly enjoyed this one and found myself thinking about it as I went about my daily life. That is a sign for me that a book has made an impression, in this case a good one. Give it a read but, sigh, be sure you're ready for the gut wrenching intro to how they get to their "next best day".
Thanks to #NetGalley and #Sourcebooks - #Casablanca for introducing me to Katie, Sam, and the rest of Borden's Gap, TN. I wish they were real and my neighbors.

This was my first book by Sharon Sala and I had high hopes from reading the blurb. Her writing style is a bit different and there was so much more happening in this story that it felt off. It was almost like there were several different potential storylines/books the author had going on in their head and then just tried to weave them all together. It was a struggle to finish.

My biggest problem was that there were no trigger warnings and there really needs to be. I haven’t personally dealt with any of the challenges (and there were a lot) in the story, the reader still needs to be able to mentally prepare themselves.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for providing this ARC to review. ~I was given this book and made no commitments to leave my opinions, favorable or otherwise. ~

This is a sweet love story. This book deals with some difficult topics like PTSD, incest and domestic abuse. What I loved about the book was a sweet happy ending. Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review

I received an arc from NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.

What an endearing story this was and Katie was a true gem and warrior. She was jilted at the alter and shot protecting her students when an active shooter came into a her school.

Wanting a fresh start. she moves away and meets her handsome Police Chief neighbor Sam. Sam realizes there is something very unique about Katie and not only is she an awesome teacher but a great person all around that maybe he could take a chance on.

Katie’s Ex is also featured in the book and that is a whole other side to the story. The grass is not always greener on the other side.
Great read!

Katie McGrath is a survivor - abandoned as a baby, growing up in foster care, left at the altar and surviving a school shooting while protecting her students. Realizing that continuing her teaching career in Albuquerque is impossible, she relocates to Borden's Gap, Tennessee. As she deals with her PTSD, the small community aids her healing process, helped along by her neighbors -two twin girls and their father.
Ms. Sala's stories never disappoint - looking forward to her next book.
#Sourcebooks Casablanca #NetGalley

Katie needs a new start and moves to Tennessee, where she gets a second chance at love. I love all of Sharon Sala books.