I loved this sweet, uplifting book. Yes, much of it was fairly predictable, and there are a lot of cliches and stereotypes, but the story is good and engrossing, and no-one with a heart could fail to feel better by the end of the book. I would definitely recommend this book as an antidote to the doom and gloom which surrounds us!

This was readable, and nice. Didn't hook me, or make me LOL, but was alright. Bit too religious that it lost its edge, and had potential to do more. Left wanting more out of this read unfortunately.

St Philomena's Covent in Fairbridge is struggling to stay open. With only three sisters: Sister Margaret, Sister Bridget and Sister Cecilia, vocations are thin on the ground and funds even thinner. You would think that when they won the lottery all their financial worries would be over. However, the win is relatively small and after the donation to the roof repair fund of the local Parish church, there is not a lot left to salvage the deteriorating convent. With such an uncertain future, they need a miracle. Will God supply one and save them?
There was a lot to enjoy about this story - the sisters were very sweet, their interior lives, realistic and sympathetic, the series of small miracles occurring through to story, heartwarming. However, there is a very sweet same sex relationship that I just couldn't see the relevance of, except that this is currently a fashionable topic that seemed to be shoe horned into the story. I also worried that while a lot of it represented the Catholic faith very well, there were elements that were a bit confusing. We have some levitation which is a bit bonkers, and some nuances of faith, ambiguous. Overall it was a light read, but not particularly memorable.
I received an ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Just utterly charming. I thoroughly enjoyed every single page and all the time I spent with the Sisters.

Normally I love novels like this but for some reason I couldn’t get into it. I picked it up and put it down so many times that it left me frustrated.

Loved this book. What a fantastically written book.
This book starts with three nuns, they are living in a filling down and dwindling parish there are only three of them left. They end up with small minor miracles until they end up in a pilgrimage to Italy.
Well written and the adventures and the ups and downs of their lives was brilliant.
Highly recommended

Not my usual type of read, but I was charmed by the nuns, although I thought the characters were somewhat cliched. What kept me reading was the storyline about the artist, and i was intrigued by the religious background, as not being a catholic it was all new to me. I can see the book’s appeal, and I thought the time period was apt. Some lovely descriptive passages too.

The sisters of Saint Philomena are in dire straits. The Mother Superior, Sr. Margaret, is at her wits’ end. Vocations have dried up and the order is currently down to three sisters. The convent is in trouble financially and tensions are rising. Ninety year old Sr Cecelia seems completely self-absorbed and Sr Bridget worries about everyone. However, her constant chirpiness proves a little too much for Sr. Margaret who is struggling under the pressures of her newly acquired responsibilities. Suddenly out of nowhere, the sisters’ prayers seem to be answered when a series of small miracles begin to unfold. Could their convent be saved after all?

This was such a feel good read. I instantly warmed to Sr. Bridget and her happy-go-lucky ‘anything is possible’ attitude to life. Each character had their own story to tell and the way in which all of their lives intertwined to reach the story’s conclusion made for a really heart-warming read. The story itself might be considered to be a stretch of the imagination but if you go with the flow and don’t analyse it too much, you will be left feeling decidedly upbeat. What a lovely book.

Thank you for NetGalley for providing me with this book for review.

What an absolute blast of a read, this book has everything, nuns, lottery tickets, love stories, it will make you chuckle and tear up in equal measures.

It is an interesting story with mostly loveable characters (I'm not so sure abour Bishop John...). However, not being a churchgoer myself, I found the nuns' religious musings a bit too lengthy and, sorry to say, a little boring. Not to mention the levitation... All in all, I think it is more enjoyable for religious people.

I enjoyed this book once I got into it. I found it rather had a slow start with lots of characters but once I became more involved I found it quite delightful in an old fashioned way. Quite quirky with a gentle feel, light with some humour bubbling away beneath. Definitely heartwarming with a good community feel about it and quite far removed from the modern world.

A charming, quirky and comforting read. I don’t think you have to be religious to enjoy this story, it is ultimately a story of community, hope and having the determination to defeat the odds.

The nuns were a great cast of characters and I really enjoyed the 90s timeline.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

With grateful thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest opinion.
New author for me and not being religious but more nosey I thought I would enjoy a light read it was different but quite enjoyable

I really enjoyed this little gem of a book. I’m not at all religious so the Catholic faith is a bit of a mystery to me but it isn’t just about that. This is a heart warming read, it’s about having faith, of any kind, religious or otherwise; it’s about hope and believing that if you want things, and work hard enough, good things will happen. It’s about community, and random acts of kindness, and also about just taking joy from the world about you. It didn’t take much reading, although my only criticism would be that it started a bit tentatively but that was soon forgotten, the more I read. Yes, it was very obvious in places, but that didn’t hurt. If you need a bit of a lift, on a grey day, this is the book for you.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Perhaps it is just me, but I didn't find this particularly humorous as described on the cover, and didn't notice many similarities to Sister Act, other than the fact that some of the characters are nuns (or actually sisters). I feel that this book may appeal to people who follow the catholic faith, as that is a very key part of the story. I would have liked to know a bit more about some of the more minor characters, e.g. Linda. The number of miracles/co-incidences felt a bit contrived, but then the title is about miracles so perhaps that is a bit unfair to comment on, and characters felt very stereotyped at times. It was a slow beginning to the story for me, but the story really did pick up when some of the characters went on a trip - I won't say who or where in order not to spoil anything, but for me this was by far the best part of the book. If the whole book had been like that, it would have received a higher rating from me.

I read this book really quickly it was just a wonderfully heartwarming and darling little story. I really enjoyed it

A sweet, gentle story, perfect for escaping troubled times and beautifully told. I loved Sister Margaret, Bridget and Cecilia, and particularly the story of two gay men in the village who sing in the same choir and are drawn to each other despite their fears of what people might say. Ideal for fans of Bake Off, Call the Midwife and other comfort TV, I could easily see this as a Sunday night series.

I picked up small miracles after seeing Julie Cohen post about it. When I was a student, I used to live in a hostel run by the Convent of the Sacred Heart, so I always have a small, soft spot for religious sisters. When I saw a book that was about three of them fighting to save their convent from being closed down, it seemed like a book that was meant for me to read.
St Philomena's is a small convent in the small town of Fairbridge. In fact, the order is very small now because there's only three of them left - Sister Margaret, Sister Bridget and Sister Cecelia - three very, very different people. Sister Margaret is struggling with the responsibility of being Mother Superior. She's terribly sensible. She loves the convent and wants to keep it open, but there's so little money and so many bills to pay! She's also battling with grief, from having lost her best friend and mentor. Sister Bridget is ebullient and friendly. She likes to cook, but doesn't have enough people to feed. SIster Cecelia is distant and academically minded. She is also obsessed with the history of the convent and making a saint in Fairbridge in order to save the order.
One of the sisters wins a small amount on the lottery and this sets off a selection of small miracles that happen one after the other. These may seem a little unlikely, but if you accept these as small miracles, it's the loveliest, most heartwarming story. I really really enjoyed this glimpse into the village life and the lives of these people.
The story also touches on the lives of people in the village.You get to hear a little bit about their lives and their loves and their dramas. There was a little bit of head-hopping (something that bothers me, but might not necessarily bother you), but it wasn't enough to stop me enjoying the book. The story is set in the 90s, which means there's a lot of telephone calls made from phone boxes and there are no mobile phones - which was rather lovely!

This is a charming, heartwarming, life affirming book about friendship, love and community. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to anyone who's finding the world a difficult place to deal with at the moment.

What a charming, gentle, read this was. It was such a relief in stressful times to read a book where all the characters were lovely and it was a pure joy to curl up with this. The sisters of St Philomena are struggling to save their convent, and members of their community are struggling with their own problems too. All are interwoven beautifully along with a local historical mystery which sees several of the characters transported to Italy. The story was maybe a little predictable in places, but it is a formula that really worked for me. My thanks for the opportunity to read this Arc in return for an honest review.

This is a really lovely gentle heartwarming story set in the mid nineties in a very pleasant sounding community which includes a convent reduced to just three nuns. The three nuns are very different, one is not at all social and has a keen interest in history, one is very friendly and an amazing cook and the other is a reluctant superior struggling to hold both herself and the financially struggling convent together. A modest lottery win leads to publicity for the convent and leads to the nuns and some of the community experiencing some small miracles of their own. The people in this are great and it’s brilliant how the story links some seemingly unrelated locals into the overall plot. I really felt for grieving Margaret and loved the gentle story, so nice to read something so uplifting.