The Friendship Circle: A magical heartwarming story about second chances and friendship for fans of cozy small-town emotional reads in 2026! by Amanda JamesMy rating: 0 of 5 stars
That subtitle is positioning the book pretty clearly, and if you like this sort of thing, this is definitely one.
I'd read an Amanda James before, The Secret Library , which set out to be inspirational and uplifting, but was let down a bit by the fact that the author's craft skill is not equal to her ambitions. It had an interesting enough premise and a worthy enough positive tone that I wanted to give her another chance, but the lack of skill was even more evident in this one, where cliches are presented as wisdom, and trite, vaguely New Agey self-help platitudes are presented as depth. The characters seemed stiff and generic to me, and overall it just didn't keep my interest, and I didn't finish it. For someone who is more centrally its target audience, it would probably work better.
I received a pre-publication copy via Netgalley for review.
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