Another sweet story, easy read from Jenny Colgan. As in the previous books of hers that I have read, she has created a wonderful, vivid sense of place and characters that feel real and unique. Although this book is somewhat of a sequel to The Bookshop on the Corner, it stands well on its own. ( )

I didn't expect to like this as much as I did. Great escape, another lovely homage to Good Books, and a good page-turner.

She mostly avoided stereotypes and cliche romance ... (spoiler alert ...)







.. until the ending, which you could see coming a mile away. Alas, the conclusion felt rushed and a little bit forced, but still was well-executed. This was exactly the gentle read I needed. ( )

**Some spoilers** - not that I’m recommending you read this one

I’m giving myself one star for perversely finishing this book, although I would have been better off not starting it at all. That’ll teach me for gravitating towards any book with ‘book shop’ in the title or a pretty book shop on the cover (although the addition of the Scottish Highlands, the place I love most in the world besides home, made it doubly irresistible). The cover lied, mind you: there was barely any shore and no book shop as such - at least, not in the manner depicted in the cover image. Rather, the shop is a mobile book van first introduced in the precursor to this story (which I am led to believe was a whole lot better than this one, but whose lead character, Nina, seems to have turned into an uncharitable shrew in between books). The much vaunted van is the subject of some early drama yet barely appears in the second half of the book, having, I suppose, served its purpose as a device to catapult the protagonist, put-upon single mum Zoe, into the wake of Nina’s story and shift the focus to her instead. The whole thing reeks of opportunism, tbh - an attempt to cash in on what seems to have been a pretty popular story but which then largely sidelines the original characters.

The plot is so-so and includes some dark themes: unable to support herself and her developmentally delayed pre-schooler, Hari, thanks to the refusal of his deadbeat dad to take any kind of responsibility, Zoe leaves her dreary life in London to take up two poorly paid new jobs in a little village perched on the edge of Loch Ness. One is the van job - again, apparently just an excuse to parachute her into the back end of someone else’s story and get her out and about in the village a bit - and the other as the seventh au pair in a row to a Rochester-lite Laird and his three out-of-control and (in the case of one, at least) seriously psychologically damaged children. The Laird, Ramsay, is unattractively weak and disturbingly irresponsible, allowing his children to wallow in neglect in their oversized, crumbling ancestral home; while Zoe is improbably saintly, chirpy and effective for someone who was supposedly so woebegone, bedraggled and crushed by life at the start of the book - a cross between Mary Poppins and Maria from the Sound of Music (indeed, both are referenced and there’s even an evil prospective stepmother/rival). The fact Ramsay is such a hopeless and disconnected father - so much so that his daughter ends up self-harming - makes it all the more annoying when, without any convincing chemistry or build-up, suddenly he and Zoe are lusting after one another.

While the plot is predictable and includes too many under-developed or unlikeable characters - save for silent little Hari and his new bestie, Ramsay’s son Patrick, both of whom provide some light relief - the biggest problem is the sloppiness of it all. This story desperately needed a firm and unforgiving editor but appears barely to have been proofread. It’s full of repetition, cliches and inconsistencies - tics which are tolerable at first but which become more noticeable as the story grinds on. One character’s name changes from one page to the next; in another spot the wrong character altogether is named when they’re not even supposed to be there. Ramsay is described throughout as ridiculously and unmistakably tall, with awkwardly huge hands (this is emphasised with annoying frequency) yet in one scene late in the book is supposed to be unrecognisable by virtue of a simple face mask. In another overblown, melodramatic part of the story a helicopter that supposedly couldn’t be used due to the stormy conditions is casually described as part of the action a page or two later. Tenses are mixed with impunity and phrasing is often awkward or passive. Sentences run on aimlessly; words and phrases are constantly recycled, often within the same line or paragraph (‘Oh God!’ anyone?); and there’s maddening overuse of ellipses and of inane and weakening filler words like ‘Um...,’ ‘absolutely’, ‘rather,’ ‘literally’ and ‘incredibly’. At one point (p227-228) the author distractingly breaks the fourth wall to opine, in her own voice, about the medicating nature of books and reading. Bizarre.

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Just a couple of examples that made me twitch:

P334 (Ramsay is taking the drunken caricature, Larissa, home)

‘He filled a large glass of water and put it next to her and, as he turned his head to look at her blonde head one last time, shook his head.’

P321 (Ramsay comes in to find Zoe sobbing):

‘He started when he saw her - it looked like she’d passed out - and she jerked awake in that way you do when you’re falling asleep and feel like you’ve missed a stair, and for a moment wasn’t at all sure where she was, then scrubbed at her tear-sodden face, but in that moment she had looked to Ramsay, who until this moment had thought of her as incredibly capable and positive, and had been bowled over by her plucky attempts with his tricky children, at how she let nothing stand in her way, in how she had literally let the light in.’

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not averse to light, sweet and cheerful holiday reads - especially chick lit with a bit of meat and heart (the deft and witty Marian Keyes is one of my long-standing faves). But this one was not, as advertised, light, charming or sweet; and while it did have some meat, the darker material wasn’t handled well enough to be affecting or ring true. All up, it was just plain disappointing.

My first Jenny Colgan book but I certainly won’t be rushing to follow up with the other two titles (secondhand) sitting on my shelf. ( )

Predictable but sweet. ( )

Single mom, Zoe, is barely making ends meet and struggling to get her son, Hari, to specialists to try and understand why he still refuses to speak at four years old. When gentrification of her London neighbourhood puts the rent outside of what Zoe can possibly pay, her son's aunt connects her with two jobs in the Highlands of Scotland. The first is providing assistance and maternity leave for Nina who runs a mobile bookshop in a van. The other is a live in position as an au pair for the Urquhart family. While Scotland is beautiful and providing so many of the things Zoe wants for Hari, both of her jobs are far more challenging than she imagined.

This is technically a sequel to The Little Shop of Ever After (which was published in the US as The Bookshop on the Corner) but while a few characters from the first book crop up here, this book is very much in its own and is pretty different in tone from what I remember of my experience with the first book. That said, it is utterly compelling and while dealing with serious issues, it is also sweet and funny with the occasional dash of romance. The children Zoe is caring for have a some serious issues and her struggles with working poverty are heartbreaking, and yet the novel never feels like misery porn. Instead, Colgan makes each character feel real and simply facing the difficulties that life throws their way. The book will also definitely give you an itch to visit Scotland, so be prepared. ( )