A big thank you is owed to NetGallery, One More Chapter, and author Jules Wake for giving me a free e-book of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This book was such a wonderful read! This was my first Jules Wake book, but this will not be my last. This book is about the family you get to make and it is not always the one you are born in. Clare is a career driven woman, who has made work her entire life. Then enters Ash, a man who is also career driven. From their first meeting sparks flew between Clare and Ash. After a one night hook-up, Clare is convinced she will never see him again. After having to see the doctor to treat a scratch, she is told by her boss to take a month off due to her overwork stress levels. With Clare given an unexpected leave from work, her sister decided to take a trip to India and leave her girls with Clare. Now with her Saturdays free from work, Clare finds herself spending time in the community park and that is where she meets an old lady named Hilda, who also reintroduces Clare to Ash. As her relationship develops between Hilda, her nieces, and Ash, Clare begins to question her reasons for the career she has chosen. Is life all about work or is it the family, community, and love that can be found in a park on a Saturday?
I completely fell in love with all of the characters, but especially Hilda. She was so fun and loving towards everyone she came in contact with. She had such great stories from her life experiences. Ava and Poppy were such sweet girls. My heart really went out to them due to their mother's life choices. I really appreciated how much Clare had the community support behind her in order to create a home for her nieces. The main focus of this book was the family and community with a touch of romance sprinkled throughout the story. The book's pacing was well done. I felt the author did a great job moving events along without ending the conflicts too soon, I was happy with the ending! Overall, I did not want this book to end! I look forward to more books by this author! I would recommend this book to those who love a self journey heartfelt story!

The Saturday Morning Park Run by Jules Wake

Claire and Ash meet one morning on the way to work in inauspicious circumstances!  They are clearly very attracted to each other but both are extremely committed to their careers with little work-life balance.  When things go wrong for both of them in their jobs, this novel follows the aftermath, involving an elderly lady Hilda, two nieces Poppy and Ava, the setting up of a park run and a shaggy carpet dog called Bill.

What a lovely story - I'm so sorry to have finished this book!  I loved the characters - the author is very skilled at creating characters young and old.  I particularly loved Hilda - I hope I'm like her at that age!  There were some very serious issues tackled in the book - work burnout, loneliness, community, social connection - but all done in such a lovely way.  This was my first Jules Wake book and I'm delighted to see that she has written lots of others.  Very highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.

The Saturday Morning Park Run by Jules Wake has great characterization.  Makes the reader want to join Claire, Ash, Hilda, and the girls in their quest.

As a fan of parkrun I was really intrigued by this book. 2 of my favourite things combined could have been fantastic or a disaster. I’m so very glad to say the end result was fantastic. 
A fabulous storyline that left me feeling warm and fuzzy with being too sweet and sickly. I really wanted the two main characters to get together and I think everyone would like a Hilda in their lives. Relatable characters and a great plot. My first Jules Wake book but not my last hopefully

A lovely read! I’m a big fan of parkrun (as is the author) - a free timed run that happens every Saturday morning all over the world. Obviously it’s on hold at the moment, but when it starts again, I’ll be there, either volunteering or walking round my local route.

Claire is a high-flying young executive, working all the hours in the week to progress up the career ladder. She has practically no social life and few friends. Her younger sister is a single mum and incredibly irritating! Claire overdoes things and ends up off work with stress. She decides to exercise to help with managing her condition and that leads to - yes you guessed it - Saturday morning parkrun. With a difference though - she ends up setting one up in her home town.

The story moves along at a good pace, the characters are very appealing (apart from her sister, who is suitably annoying). We have the handsome (and charming) hero, a great older woman in Hilda and a cute rescue dog. As someone who does parkrun it was interesting reading how one is set up but most of all, it is a book about people finding each other, working together and recognising how they need each other. It's also about family, and how that comes in different forms. There are fabulous descriptions of cake too. A charming and inspiring read.

I liked the concept of this book and it was well written too. The love story if you can call it that felt a little disjointed to me and I have a few mixed feelings about the book as a whole. But over all it was good.

I have mixed thoughts on this book but on the whole, I enjoyed it.

I absolutely loved the beginning, you could really feel the sexual tension between Ash and Claire as you read, but then I felt that disappeared so quickly I wasn't sure what happened with that storyline. It becomes apparent later, so it was good to have a bit of wonder as you read, but initially, it felt a bit disjointed.

I thought it had good characters and especially loved Hilda. I enjoyed the setting too. The book seemed to pick up the pace again about halfway through and from then on was an easy enjoyable read and I would buy more books from this author.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc, which I have enjoyed reading.
The Saturday Morning Park Run by Jules Wake is very entertaining and enjoyable to read. The storyline was excellent and the information about Park Run was very informative. The characters were well written and life like and funny, sad and entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
Highly recommended.

A fab read, the story of Claire and Ash.
The first time they meet they are both high-flying professionals with little time for a social life, yet a few days later they meet again in the local park when life has changed for both of them.  If it was not for Hilda pushing them together would they have even spoken again?
Loved the characters of Bill the dog and Hilda

Another great book by Jules Wake. It brings together an eclectic mix of characters from young Ava and her slightly older sister Poppy, Claire, Ash, the lovable Hilda and the dog Bill.... If we believe what we read, Hilda has led a very colourful life. Claire is landed with her two nieces when her sister Alice goes off to India on a yoga retreat for a week. At the same time, she is signed off from work for a month with depression and is befriended in the park by Hilda who ends up talking Claire into organising a Saturday Morning Parkrun, along with her new friend Ash, who she had bumped into on the way to catching her train to work. They started the on off of a relationship but were pushed together by Hilda. Lots of twists with this story, it has two storylines running in tandem, the parkrun and the wellbeing of the girls. It is well written and a lovely story.

This is a fun story of how sometimes disparate events can culminate in something so worthwhile and inspirational when you least expect it!

Claire is so focussed on her career, she's forgotten there's anything else to life until a coffee incident proves a huge distraction in the form of Ash! Not long after that, she's diagnosed with stress and instructed not to go to work for a month by her doctor. She has no idea what she'll do - but her younger sister, Alice, does. Alice decides to go off to India for a week, leaving her two daughters to stay with Claire. Whilst the girls are at school, Claire goes for a walk in the park to get some exercise. That's where she meets the colourful septuagenarian, Hilda, a straight talking escapee from the local care home who runs in the park every day. As the relationships  between Claire, Ash and Hilda, the two youngsters and a stray dog develop, so do the challenges Hilda throws at them . . . . including organising a Park Run event in their local park. They never dreamed of how much paperwork, rules, regulations and time it would take but it gives them an added purpose and brings them closer together. However, just where is Alice and what will happen to her daughters?

This is a story of developing a supportive community and definitely shows that sometimes it isn't what you know but who you know that can help you succeed. It is also about developing connections, making the most of opportunities and striving hard to succeed but keeping a balance between work and life, with life, family and friendships always being more important than your job. It is a fun read filled with love, learning to work together and overcoming obstacles, a delightful story to escape into with a lovely romance or three, too!

I requested and was gifted a copy of this book and this is my honest review after choosing to read it and thoroughly enjoying reading it.

This book had everything I was looking for right now - warmth, wit, loveable and unique three-dimensional characters, a sense of community, purpose, heart and important life lessons.

I think many of us have been where main character Claire is at the beginning of this story; burnt out, stressed, overwhelmed and longing to get off the career treadmill (though she doesn’t realise it at first). I really enjoyed how Jules Wake unfurled this story, bringing Ash and Claire together at the beginning, pulling them apart, giving them their own challenges and then introducing the brilliant Hilda into the equation. I loved Hilda! What a character; she was one of the best things about this book (along with Bill the dog), and I just wish she was my next door neighbour. 

The background of the park run was a really interesting part of the story, and I thought Ash was hot (even when grumpy and out of sorts) but it was seeing Claire’s journey - especially with regards to taking on responsibility for her nieces and finally making her house a home - that really struck me. I won’t pretend I didn’t shed a few tears in the last chapter. I was sad when the book was over because I didn’t want to say goodbye to such an amazing cast of characters. 

This was an easy five stars from me and I really hope Jules writes a sequel.

Oh I absolutely loved this book! I don’t know how I’ve never read any of this author’s books before. I intend to rectify that as soon as I can.

What can I say to make you read this book? Everything about it is perfect.

Right from the start it had me hooked. Our three main characters are all there on those first few pages, Claire, Ash and Hilda. At this stage, they’ve no idea how they will change each other’s lives.

Claire is a lovely and relatable character, totally caught up in the treadmill of her busy career, but her life changes quite suddenly.

Ash has a heart of gold under his slightly prickly exterior.

Hilda is such a character. She’s full of tall tales that we can’t tell if they’re true or not, and she’s both wise and funny.

When the three lives intersect, we get a wonderful story, full of warmth, humour and love.

This book is funny, heart-warming and so entertaining. It’s an absolute pleasure to read. A real treat that will bring a smile to your face and joy to your heart.

I am a huge fan of Jules Wake/Julie Caplin, so was overjoyed that there was another book for me to read and enjoy, and I really was not disappointed.

This story begins with Claire, a workaholic who had no time for anything else other than work and her desire to make partner at the firm she worked at. Busy with work 24/7 and with no time for family, friends, or to even take a breath, she is completely and utterly focused on her desire to succeed at the expense of, well, life really. When she meets Ash, the sparks fly between them from their initial meet cute, but the path of love never runs completely smoothly. When Claire has a breakdown whilst visiting her GP, and is signed off work to give her time to breathe, she could never have expected how her life was going to work out. During her time off work, she has her adorable nieces thrust upon her by her sister, who goes to a retreat in India for a week. Suddenly caring for two young children starts a chain of events that leads Claire in a completely new direction.

Out in her local park, Claire meets the mysterious and very feisty pensioner Hilda who is a complete breath of fresh air. Everyone needs a Hilda in their life, she was an absolute joy! Whilst getting to grips with the highs and lows of having to raise two young girls, Claire finds the rest of her life organised somehow with a lot of direction from Hilda, who pushes Claire and Ash back together, and gets them to organise a Park Run in their park. I loved Hilda’s mysterious and extraordinary background, and her sheer love of life.

There are many parts to this wonderful book, and although the steamy connection between Claire and Ash is off the scale, this is a book about community, friendship, and family. Family in this context is not just the family you are born with, but the many forms that a family can take.

As a non-runner, I actually found the detail about the Park Run, and how Park Runs are community runs taking place across the country every Saturday (although not during the present pandemic) really fascinating. It was interesting to see that there are many people who would not be considered to be runners who join in. There are health reasons as to why I am unable to go, but I have many friends who attend Park Runs in various places and I must confess to spending much of the book wishing I could take part too.

Once I immersed myself in the world of Claire, Ash and Hilda I could not put the book down, it was completely wonderful, even with a few ups and downs. This book made me want to be a part of it all. The side characters were lovely, plus there was a gorgeous ‘hairy carpet dog’ in amongst it all, and who doesn’t love a dog in a story? There were some lovely and very relatable characters in the story, and some not so lovable, but the sense of community and family shone from the pages like a beacon of light. This book is a definite five star book for me, it made me laugh and cry, and gave me the desire to locate my own sense of community.

This is such a gorgeously warm-hearted novel, which made me smile and feel better about the world.
I must admit, however, that I am not a runner and will never be one either but luckily that didn't spoil my enjoyment of the story. Claire is a fabulous protagonist and she occasionally made me think of Sophie Kinsella's "The Undomestic Goddess" which in my opinion is a huge compliment, as it's one of my favourite books. I think it's the idea of having to take time out of a high-powered job and see how the stress was strangling you. Ms Wake portrays this beautifully and sensitively. 

I have to say as well that Ash is exactly my kind of sexy hero. Sort of Heathcliff/Mr Darcy who can put together Ikea furniture (my dream man). I think it's so important as well to show that make characters can struggle with depression too. Mental health issues do not make you weak but instead show you how strong you really are.

Anyway I can't thank Netgalley enough for allowing me to read this early. It made me smile on a very rainy day.

This is my first Jules Wake read and I can see myself reading more of her.

The Saturday Morning Park Run is about a career oriented woman named Claire and how her life intertwines with an older quirky, albeit lonely  woman named Hilda, a very attractive successful engineer Ash, and her two young nieces. Together, this unlikely group help each other through hard life obstacles all while creating/planning a Park Run from the ground up. 

The story itself  is charming and immersive. It’s nice to exist in this little world for a while.  I enjoyed each of the characters and I think Jules Wake’s strength in this novel was the friendship between Hilda and Claire and also building Claire’s characters arc in a really believable way. It took me a few chapters to really get into the story and my main issue was with the staring contest meet cute between Claire and Ash. It just seemed a little unbelievable for two professional adults and took me out of the story, but I came to love both characters and all their following interactions. 

In a word, I would call the book lovely. It’s one Is be happy to pass along to a friend looking for something light and happy.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher.   I actually was surprised how much I liked this book, great storyline and likeable characters.   This made me smile in several places especially during this current time with more people taking up running.

This was my first read by this author and I must say I was thoroughly delighted! I love stories set in the UK and this book had everything I love about this setting.

I'd have to say that this is slightly more women's fiction than romance. It's Claire's journey back to health - both mental and physical - and a rediscovery about who she is and what her priorities should be/are. And that's the heart of the story. Claire's developing friendships, the relationship that blossomed with her nieces in her care, and her new hobby that turns into so much more. While her connection to Ashwin is there (and is a bit steamy at the beginning), that takes a backseat to the rest of her story.

I loved that Claire was able to take her lists and level-headedness and applied them to smaller every day tasks. Did it always work? Of course not, which showed the struggle of single moms everywhere. When she learns to ask for help I was thrilled for her. It really does take a  village to raise a child.

The secondary and tertiary characters were all delightful - with the exception of her sister. Vastly different personalities, and distinct voices. Sometimes I'd feel as though there might be a bit of hand-waving coincidences, but in a small community there truly are connections that we might not be aware of if we choose to remain on the outskirts.

For the ending, I would have liked a bit more about Claire's parents. Not that it would be easy for them with wanting to keep peace with both their daughters, but surely they'd have had SOME kind of reaction to what Alice did. It was great that Claire confronted Alice, but did anything truly change there?

Also, I would have liked to know more about Ash's job. He saw the problems his hours caused, but - again - there was a bit of hand-waving over this conflict.

Overall, however, this was a heartwarming story. I look forward to catching up on the author's backlist, and whatever tale she weaves next.

This book is such a refreshing delight! Just as one of the main characters, Claire, is told that she needs time out from her career because otherwise the stress will permanently damage her health, this is the perfect time out for anyone wanting an escape and a thoroughly enjoyable read! It will give you a real feel-good injection!

Claire and Ash literally bump into each other quite by accident and the immediate attraction is mutual. But life happens … it’s messy and it gets in the way. Claire is so focused on her work that she barely notices her ill health until she’s absolutely forced to. And when she finally takes that step off the hamster-wheel that her life has become, she realizes that she doesn’t actually know much about what goes on around her. She’s been living in her little coccoon, not noticing much else.

But when you take the time to smell the roses (or the coffee – big focus on coffee here, I loved it!), it’s amazing that your life takes turns for the better. Suddenly your life starts to take on a whole new meaning that you didn’t even know you were looking for. That perfection you’ve been striving for all along, might be ok, if there’s a bit of messiness thrown into the mix. It’s really not always a bad thing. You meet new people, who you initially think you can’t stand, but who you quickly come to see that you actually quite like! And then those people start to teach you things about yourself that you never even knew!

Life’s funny like that!

I loved the interaction between Claire and Hilda … in fact I just about loved everything about Hilda (and let’s face it, Claire needed a bit of a shake-up). She’s no-nonsense and a whole lot of sass for her age, and she’s of quite a tidy age, not that it bothers her. She’s not going to waste time sugar-coating things, so just keep up, buckle up and enjoy the ride! I think for me, the most important theme was that of community and how bringing people together creates the most amazing bonds. You think you’re doing something for yourself, but then it turns out to be so much bigger than that. You end up paying it forward in ways you could never even imagine!

I’ve never read any of Jules Wake’s books before but will definitely be going back to look for her previous titles. This gets a glittery 5-star thumbs up from me. There’s so much doom and gloom going on around us that it just puts a big smile on my face to read a heartwarming and uplifting book like The Saturday Morning Park Run – and no, it’s not just because I read it from the comfort of my couch, with copious cups of sweet tea, while I was reading about people doing exercise!! How can you even think it!!

This book was a delight to read. It has humour, romance, heart-warming moments, great characters and even a dog in need of a home! I found that I totally bought in to the friendships which develop between Claire, Ash and Hilda. Connecting across the generations seems easy in this story and there is a real sense of chance bringing people together at just the right time.
Starting anew, taking a look at work/ life balance and second chances are themes which run through the whole story between all the characters. You feel that it is never too late to make changes. Claire is immensely likeable and easy to like. I also enjoyed Jules' writing style which strikes just the right tone. There are some lovely visual pictures conjured up. I particularly enjoyed the ride to the Dog Shelter in Ash's Porsche which was bursting at the seams. The whole story makes you think about what is important and how a community can come together.

In short: Family and community
Thanks to the author for a copy of the book