The Merry Matchmaker by Sheila Roberts is a unique holiday story. Frankie is a widow trying to help everyone around her find love. Her Christmas doesn’t go as planned with her friendemy taking over her favorite town event. Will Frankie help her sister, employee, and others find love? All the different characters allowed for a unique story. You get to know many of the townspeople. It isn’t an all fluff story. The author does a great job showing that grief can be handled differently but kept the book still enjoyable. It is the perfect book to kick off the holiday season with!

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, Netgalley, and Sheila Roberts for access to this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

My thanks for the ARC goes to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing, MIRA. I'm voluntarily leaving a review.

Genre: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Holiday Romance
Spice Level: Closed-door
Language: Smattering of profanity, including f-bombs

I'm always up for a romance book with a woman in her 40s+, and here you get to dive in headfirst into a multigenerational romance.

There are strong Emma vibes going on in this book—and this is intentional. (Give a curtsy to Jane Austen for her writing.)

Frankie lost the love of her life early, and now she's friends with Mitch. But it can't go any further than friendship for multiple reasons. Frankie works so hard to "help" other people. Some might call her efforts meddling! She looks outward and always wants to help, meaning she doesn't shine the spotlight on herself.

I enjoyed seeing how different aged women approached romance. (This is 3 generations, and each has a different reason for not getting too involved.)

If you enjoy fun, light-hearted romance books with Christmas vibes to go with the Emma vibes, this is the book for you. Other romance readers will also enjoy it.

Happy reading!

The Merry Matchmaker is a fun, chaotic and merry read! A re-telling of Emma it follows Frankie a recent widow who loves the holidays and thinks she can set everyone up. The book is full of fun characters who Frankie sets up and fail. It's got a great Christmas setting that makes it feel cozy and it's funny. I really enjoyed reading The Merry Matchmaker.

Perfect for the Hallmark movie-loving holiday people! This was a fun, albeit cheesy, read that had a lot of fun characters that you can't help but root for!

This was a very sweet and cozy read. It was great to have representation for a more mature relationship. Thank you NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Poor Frankie, always figuring out a love plan for everyone else, all the while thinking she doesn’t need one of her own, even though it’s staring her right in the face…
All I can say is that she sure spends a lot of time trying to make everyone else happy! But each time she has a plan, something proves her wrong, and it takes the whole book for her to catch on to that and let what really matters enter her heart - just let love in and it will happen! This was a fun read and I thank NetGalley for letting me read an advance copy in return for a fair review.

I usually love Sheila Robert books, but I’m sad to report that I didn’t love this one. You get multiple POVs, which made it a bit hard to keep track on who’s who. I couldn’t relate to the characters, which made it a bit hard to get thru. Overall it was okay.

What a wonderful holiday read. This book was exactly what you are looking for in a Christmas story. There were emotional highs and lows that kept you entertained throughout the story. I liked that the main character was not some 20 or 30 something year old, but 50 years old. It was great to see romance occur at all ages throughout this book. This is a book you definitely want to pick up to get you in the holiday mood!

Yes it's a sorta retelling of Emma but don't worry if you haven't read Austen because this stands just fine on its own. It's the messy slightly chaotic tale of Frankie who wants people to be matched up and happy. That includes Mitch, who has been her friend for a long time. You know, don't you, who he'll be best matched with. I liked that this featured more, ahem, mature characters. There are, btw, perhaps too many of them but it works. Thanks to the publisher for the arc. A good read.

Once again, Sheila Roberts has a wonderful, inspiring Christmas novel. Frankie lives in the town of Carol and owns a store called Holiday Happiness. Both her mother and daughter help her out at the store along with a new employee. Frankie is busy at the store, but she also likes to help people better their lives. She does this whether or not they want her help. Sometimes things work out well and other times not so well. Frankie is always ready to apologize and move on. She is also busy getting ready for the Santa Walk that is held on Dec. 21st each year. She created this event and had been the Chairperson until she was pushed out by a rival. She also loved being Mrs. Santa every year alongside Santa, played by her best friend Mitch. The new Chairperson has pushed her out of that role too, Frankie tries to make the best of everything just like when she lost her husband a few years ago to an accident. She has tried to move on like her mother did so many years ago when she lost her husband and had two young girls to raise. There is some underlining sadness at the holidays for both women, but they are looking to the future and a new lives with someone special. Meanwhile, Frankie is trying to find some happiness for her divorced sister as well. Maybe her matchmaking efforts might work this time. I enjoyed this book so much that I could not put it down and finished it in one day. I just had to see if the budding romances developed into something special for Frankie, her mother and her sister.

Thank you to the publishers for an early copy of this book! I liked the Christmas setting of this one and that this was an Emma re-telling. But about the halfway point I couldn’t stand the main character anymore. I thought she was kind of selfish and way too involved in everyone’s lives. She started complaining about a lot of things that were kind of her fault 🤷‍♀️. It was also hard for me to connect with these characters. Not my favorite.. but enjoyable.

The Merry Matchmaker by Sheila Roberts

Rating: 4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Harlequin, HarperCollins, Netgalley, and Sheila Roberts for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was an entertaining, heartwarming holiday read that wonderfully reimagined Jane Austen’s Emma. In The Merry Matchmaker, we meet Frankie, a 50-something, widowed owner of a holiday decor shop. Frankie is portrayed as real and authentic all throughout the story. We can see her trials, struggles, hopes, and fears all across this book. I especially appreciated how the author addressed heavier topics like grief while still ensuring that the story felt positive and uplifting. Also, the focus on how love and grief are often intertwined was beautifully written.

All of the characters added to the overall story and I loved all of the Christmas details. It really made for a super sweet, cozy holiday read. As one of my first holiday reads of 2024, this book didn’t disappoint and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. I am totally in my Holiday feels right now after reading this.

This book was sweet. I loved Frankie, even though I wanted to scream at her to chill.....LOL She was well meaning with her meddling, but when things backfired on her it was comical.

I thought the family and friends dynamic expressed in the book was really heartwarming. I love the small town feel. The sense of community was nice.

This was definitely a Hallmark movie in the making. I did get plenty of Holiday vibes from it, which is oddly missing in other Christmas books I've read. I could visualize the quaint downtown, Frankie's shop and the hardware store. The Christmas decorations everywhere.

I just really enjoyed it and am having to fight the urge to drag out my Christmas tree!

'The Merry Matchmaker' is, as in all things Sheila Roberts, a treat! Frankie is so busy avoiding self-examination that is channeled into meddling in other's lives that she can't move past the grief of her widowhood. Loosely based on Jane Austen's 'Emma' the personality similarities of the main characters are spot on, and eventual realizations are life-changing. The multiple POV writing technique was sometimes hard to follow, but ultimately this book was a joy.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

The Merry Matchmaker
Sheila Robert
October 01, 2024

It’s nearing the holiday season and Frankie Lane is making her business festive for her customers. She specializes in celebration items of all kinds that are available year round. The small town of Carol has many townsfolk that attempt to let all know of personal business throughout the area. Her best pal is Mitch Howard, a divorcee who owns the hardware store. He’s a gem to look at as well as being a friend to many. He doesn't date at the present so Frankie feels she should make it her job to try to set him up. Her daughters Natalie and Stephanie are among her heart-felt chores to manage their lives as mother’s can do.
The Merry Matchmaker will be published on October 91, 2024 by Mira. I was able to read the ARC of Robert's latest novel via NetGalley. It was a joy to read, a delight to have fun with the characters. It’s a holiday story Sheila Roberts’ fans won’t want to miss, an excellent holiday read that is lots of fun. Be certain to choose this as it hits the shelves in October. Enjoy!

Frankie Lane, a widow, 50 something owner of Holiday Happiness, a small-town shop specializing in holiday decorations and similar items. Among the other characters we meet Frankie's mother, sister and daughter who also work in her shop as well as a host of other residents and shop owners in her town.
Readers learn that Frankie's matchmaking attempts sometimes fail. this book really felt like a too long hallmark movie. There are so many point of views, it got confusing. However, I did enjoy the characters.
Frankie's family and corky are my favorite characters.

A Jane Austen's Emma Christmas mashup and I loved it! Go in for the feels, for the fun, for the joy of a charming story!

I wanted to love this story as it is based off of one of my all time favorites - Emma by Jane Austen. This book fell so flat for me.
There was a massive cast of characters where you get multiple POV’s and it’s extremely dialogue heavy.
POV’s switch mid chapter with no warning and as the dialogue is so prevalent it’s hard to know who is taking. It was also so hard to keep track of who is who and how they connect as there is no distinction between them.
The characters also fell flat in my opinion, likely as it always felt hard to know whose POV we were in. The single dad character drove me insane, I am aware he is grieving but the attitude towards his young child made me so angry.

The story felt so slow to build and then the last 30% felt rushed to get to an ending. Overall I didn’t enjoy this and wanted more.

A note for the publisher - there are many weird formatting issues in this and multiple times where words that begin contain the letter “f” have spaces added - for instance snowflake looks like snowf lake.

Unfortunately, I ended up dnf this book for me. I had a hard time connecting with Frankie and honestly found her a bit annoying.

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

The Merry Matchmaker is a Jane Austen/Christmas combination that you need to read. It is a sweet story about a matchmaking widow who finds out that her actions don't always turn out as planned.

Thank you netgalley for The Merry Matchmaker by Sheila Roberts