In Hei­di Shertok’s romance nov­el Match Me If You Can, match­mak­er Ashi­va finds her­self in trou­ble: she’s made a huge faux-pas with a pow­er­ful Jew­ish fam­i­ly in Brook­lyn while attempt­ing to find a match for their daugh­ter. This leads to her match­mak­ing busi­ness crum­bling, as the fam­i­ly dis­par­ages her name across the Ortho­dox com­mu­ni­ty. Scroung­ing around for a way to fix things, Ashi­va decides that she’ll find a match for her friend Caleb, an excep­tion­al­ly eli­gi­ble and prized bach­e­lor, to get her busi­ness back off the ground. The only com­pli­ca­tion is that the two have a long his­to­ry togeth­er, and he might want to be with her more than any of the women she sets him up with.

Pro­tag­o­nist Ashi­va is endear­ing, fun­ny, and bub­bly; she is con­stant­ly putting her foot in her mouth, which leads to many laugh-out-loud scenes. The tone of the book mix­es sweet­ness and hilar­i­ty, as read­ers watch Ashi­va dress up in dis­guise to eaves­drop on a date on more than one occa­sion. he char­ac­ters that sur­round her — from the kvetch­ing, foul-mouthed wid­ow Ber­nice, to her bel­liger­ent yet endear­ing best friend Sis­sel — are equal­ly endear­ing in their own ways.

Match Me If You Can is a quick-paced joy to read, depict­ing Ortho­dox Brook­lyn in a ful­ly-real­ized man­ner. Jew­ish law is brought in through mul­ti­ple con­texts, as are the vari­a­tions in Jew­ish cus­tom and prac­tice, most evi­dent­ly present in the con­trast between Ashi­va and Caleb’s back­grounds, with Ashi­va being Ashke­nazi and Caleb being both Ashke­nazi and Ethiopi­an. Match Me If You Can earns a laud­able place in the canon of Jew­ish romance fiction.