The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan

 

What was the first book you read in 2026?  I read this book on New Year’s Day.

Mirren Sutherland has been hired by Jamie McPherson, a highland Scottish laird, to help find a rare book amongst this late Grandad’s collection, that could help save the estate.  The problem is, he doesn’t know what book it is and his Granddad had a massive amount of books filling the entire estate.  Rival book hunter, Theo Pallister, is also on the case and just so happens to be the man that ghosted Mirren after their last adventure.  Will Mirren find the rare book, and will she find love?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I started reading this book and realized I was missing the novella, The Christmas Book Hunt, so I went back and read it first.  It was a very enjoyable novella.  In it, Mirren searches for “A Child’s Garden of Verses” as a wish for her dying Great Aunt Violet to see the book she so loved in her childhood.  Mirren is a “quantity surveyor,” but searches across the United Kingdom for this lost book, a decision which changes her career.  Handsome Theo Pallister assister her and sparks fly.  I loved the adventure of the search and the bond between Mirren and her great aunt Violet.

·       I love a good treasure hunt, especially a treasure hunt involving a lost book. The clues were fun, and it was very enjoyable trying to solve the mystery of the lost book.

·       The book and Dr. Who references were a lot of fun.  It is a great book for book lovers.

·       The setting of the run-down castle in Scotland was also magical.  I wanted to visit!

·       Roger the dog was a cute character.  I enjoyed the humor when Jamie said Roger was a working dog and didn’t want to be petted, but Roger loved getting pets from Mirren.

·       I enjoyed the characters, especially Mirren.

·       One of my favorite parts was that Mirren and Theo had their own private rail car to the estate.  It was magical!

·       Everyone is trapped at the estate due to a huge snowstorm and family secrets are also investigated.

·       The romance didn’t go the way I expected it to, but I enjoyed it.

·       I love Jenny Colgan.  Whenever I need escapism reading, I love to grab one of her books.

·       The book didn’t have that much Christmas in it, it was more a winter setting.  It would be a good read any time of year.

Overall, The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan is a cozy book treasure adventure that was a great escapism read.

Book Source:  Review Copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you!

Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

 

Do you have any favorite Christmas shops that you frequent?  I love shopping at Christmas stores, but I don’t have one favorite.  I do love to buy people presents at Seroogy’s Chocolate shop and they have nice Christmas items in that store every year that I like to pick up.

Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop is a follow-up to last year’s The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan.  Carmen’s happily ever after has not quite turned out as it seemed it would.  Her boyfriend, Oke, has returned to Brazil with many questions about the future of their relationship unresolved.  She has worn out her welcome at her sister Sophia’s house and needs to find a new place to live.  Her boss is thinking about selling his shop to have money to fulfill his travel dreams.  With all of this going on, will Carmen be able to get her life back on track and have a merry Christmas?

I enjoyed getting back to the characters of the Christmas Bookshop series and seeing what they’ve been up to.  I love Colgan’s characters, especially the children in this one.  The setting is also wonderful, and I really want to visit this part of Edinburgh someday.  I always love the humor in Colgan’s books as well.  This novel was not as good for me as the first one, mostly because Oke is just gone for most of it with the total loss of contact with Carmen.  Carmen was struggling through most of the book.  There wasn’t as much Christmas spirit in this book.  I did love how she was able to live in what sounds like a fabulous apartment in the upper levels of the bookshop and she did make some new friends.  I’m hoping there will be a next book where Carmen has things more together and it’s more focused on Christmas.

It would work best to read Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop after reading the first book The Christmas Bookshop.  I don’t think it would work well as a standalone novel.

Book Source:  Review copy from NetGalley and William Morrow Books. Thank-you!  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Summer Skies by Jenny Colgan

 

Do you prefer a window seat or aisle seat when you fly?  I always love sitting in a window seat and getting to see what is happening when I am on an airplane.  I’m finishing up my summer reads and read The Summer Skies by Jenny Colgan earlier this month. I always love reading Jenny Colgan’s novels.  I get swept away by the stories.

The Summer Skies is set in far northern Scotland.  Morag McGinty has been born into a family of pilots.  She works for a major airline, but after a near accident, she is working on being ready to fly again.   During this situation, she has finally found a man she thinks she has a future with, Hayden.  Together they plan on relocating to Dubai.  Morag decides she can be the co-pilot on long haul flights and won’t have to face her fear of being the pilot in charge again. The family business is flying a plane service from island to island in northern Scotland. When Morag’s grandfather falls ill, she helps out by coming back home to help with the flying.  Will she be able to overcome her fears of flying as the primary pilot again?

I always love how in Jenny Colgan’s novels, the primary character is a woman who is trying to find her way in the world.  What does Morag really want for her future?  She is not sure herself and it takes coming home and being put into a precarious situation that really makes her realize what is important.  I love her side characters too – as there were many new and unique characters in this book.  Another great element is the food. There is a mouth-watering description of bread in this book that made me want to go out and make my own home made loaf.  The settings are also wild and wonderful as well.  I really want to visit northern Scotland now.  I wasn’t sure where this story was going, and I enjoyed the journey. I also have always loved aviation and enjoyed the elements in this story. I hope that it is the start of a lovely new series.  I enjoyed reading this novel.

Book Source: Review Copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you!  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

 

 

Title: The Christmas Bookshop

Author:  Jenny Colgan

Narrated by:  Eilidh Beaton

Publisher: Harper Audio

Length: Approximately 11 hours and 23 minutes

Source: Checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library through Overdrive.  Thank-yo

Have you ever shopped at a Christmas shop?  What about a Christmas Book Shop?

I’ve been to Frankenmuth Michigan over twenty years ago and it was filled with beautiful Christmas stores. I need to go back someday.  I’ve never been to a Christmas Book Shop, but I would love it.

In The Christmas Bookshop, Carmen has lost her job working in retail when the store she works at closes for good.  With no prospects in her town, she goes to live with her sister Sofia and her children in Edinburgh.  Sofia is a lawyer with a client who owns a book shop that is going to close.  Sofia hopes that Carmen can help the shop to make a profit over the Christmas season.  Carmen is not sure she can do it, but she decides to give it a try.  Along the way she meets two potential suitors.  What will Carmen do with life and which suitor will she chose?

Jenny Colgan is one of my favorite authors and I love her Christmas stories. I love that her stories often involve a woman down on her luck who manages to find out what her passions in life are and make a fresh start.  I love bookstores so reading about how Carmen is able to spruce up the store and reinvent it as a Christmas Bookshop was delightful.  I was also intrigued by the vivid descriptions of Edinburgh.  It made me really want to visit this city and see the architecture.  It sounds like a beautiful place to visit at Christmas.

I also loved that Carmen and Sofia were two very different sisters that didn’t really get along, but they are able to really understand each other and have a better relationship in this story.  I also loved Carmen’s relationship with her nieces and nephew.  I also loved the bookshop owner, Mr. McCredie.  I loved how his story slowly came together piece by piece. 

Eilidh Beaton was a soothing narrator who gave the characters a good voice.  Each character had a different voice from her, which I enjoy.  This overall was a very enjoyable and charming Christmas story.

An Island Wedding by Jenny Colgan

 

Do you have an auto-buy author?  Jenny Colgan’s books are auto buys for me.  I love her.

An Island Wedding is the fifth book of the Mure series. I love Colgan’s series, especially this series.  With it being a series, I feel like I get to know all of the characters on the island of Mure in the North Sea so well.  It’s like visiting with old friends each time I pick up a new book in the series.

Flora Mackenzie and her fiancé Joel are finally going to get married.  Unfortunately, the two of the them have very different ideas on what they want for a wedding.   Joel gets Flora to agree on a small wedding, but everyone on the island is sure that they will be invited.  Jan’s sister, model Olivia Macdonald is also returning to Mure to have a large and lavish wedding at Flora’s hotel, the Rock, the same weekend as her wedding!  Saif and Lorna’s relationship is threatened by circumstances that are mostly out of their control.  Will everyone get their happily ever after?

I vastly enjoyed this story.  I hope that the Mure series continues on as I love all of the characters and the setting.  I want to visit this beautiful fictional island in the north between Scotland and Norway.  I did get a bit annoyed at Flora not being more up front with Joel about what she wanted for a wedding until far into the process.  I loved that she picked a colored dress to go more with her skin tone and hair.  I enjoyed meeting Jan’s sister and the family dynamics there.  I loved that Olivia seemed very icy, but she had picked the perfect man for her.  I especially enjoyed Saif and Lorna’s story.  I hope we can enjoy more of their story.

I would suggest reading this series in order.  The books build on each other.

Overall, An Island Wedding is a great addition to the Mure series.

Book Source:  Review Copy from Avon Books and NetGalley.  Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Sunrise by the Sea by Jenny Colgan

What are your favorite comfort reads?

 Jenny Colgan is one of my favorite authors and one that I turn to when I’m looking for comfort reads.  I love her characters and really like the Little Beach Street, Summer Seaside Kitchen, and Scottish Bookshop series.  I always can’t wait what is in store for the characters next.

 Sunrise by the Sea is a new book in the Little Beach Street Bakery series.  Marisa Rosso has moved to the village of Mount Polbearne to try to start over.  Marisa’s beloved grandfather has passed away and she can’t get over her death and move on.  She realizes she has anxiety and tries to figure out how to deal with it.  Unfortunately, the peace and quiet she craves, quickly vanishes when a piano teacher, Alex, moves in next door. Will she be able to get over her fears and work with him to find peace and quiet?  Will she be able to get to know her community and Alex?

 While there is a new character, old favorites Polly, Huckle, and there twins also are part of the story.  The story moves between Polly and Marisa.  Polly’s family is having a hard time with finances and making their businesses work in these trying times.  How can they make it all work and what is the most important thing to them?

 I really liked having a new character while still enjoying old characters.  I really liked the exploration of anxiety and grief in this novel and how Marisa was able to get the help she needed.  I also loved Marisa’s relationship with her grandmother over Skype. She didn’t know here that well as she had always spent time with her Grandfather.  I love that they cooked together, watched TV together, and talked.  They were two lonely people who found comfort with each other over the distance.

 Favorite Quote:

“But being an introvert meant that often she hadn’t quite managed to pluck up the courage to tell people she didn’t like them that much, and things could bumble along, or she would lack the courage to make it clear to people she did like that she liked them, and they’d pass her by.”

 Overall, Sunrise by the Sea was a nice comfort read that continues as one of my favorite stories.

 Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow. Thank-you!

 

Christmas at the Island Hotel by Jenny Colgan

 

I love Jenny Colgan’s books.  She writes vivid characters and I greatly enjoy their stories.  Christmas at the Island Hotel is the fourth in this series set on Mure.  Mure is a tiny island halfway between Scotland and Norway.  Over the course of the four books, I’ve felt like I’ve gotten to know and love all of the characters on this small island.  It was like a Christmas gift to be able to take a glimpse into their lives again.

 Fintan’s beloved husband left him a beautiful hotel on the island to run, but Fintan is having a hard time working through his grief to get the hotel up and running.  Luckily his sister Flora is helping him out with it all but is also secretly worried as she has a brand-new baby but feels like she wants to keep working. Shouldn’t a new mother only want to spend time with her baby?  The pressure is also on at the hotel after it is listed online as one of the world’s worst hotels.  Dr. Saif is a Syrian refugee working on the island.  He is still searching for his lost wife and feeling guilty that he is thinking about moving on with another woman.  Isla has worked for Flora at her bakery in the past and is now working for the new French chef at the Island hotel.  She finds herself attracted to the new kitchen helper, Konstantin.  Little does she know that Konstantin is a Norwegian royal who has been kicked out by his father to learn how to actually work for a living.  Konstantin has lived a pampered life and realizes that he doesn’t have any skills for how to live.  Will Isla learn Konstantin’s true identity?  Will the hotel get a successful start?  Will the island finally have Christmas lights?

 I loved this book and finished it quickly.  You could probably read this as a standalone book, but I would recommend reading the first three books in the series first.  You would understand a lot more of the background of the cast of characters. I love that I know I will get a mostly happy ending with Colgan’s books, but that I will love the journey along the way.  The characters are also my favorite thing about the books – I just love them.  I really hope that Colgan writes a book a book five in this series.  I enjoyed that my old favorite characters were in this book, but that Isla and Konstantin were added in for new characters and storyline.  I enjoyed it!  I also love how Colgan is able to write a book that has both hetereosexual and homosexual characters with convincing love stories, and also include a Syrian refugee storyline.  The romance is fun, but clean.

 Favorite Quote:

“On the empty road, as the angel faded behind him, he had never felt lonelier in his entire life, like the only man in a world that had turned very, very cold toward him.”

 Overall, Christmas the Island Hotel is an enjoyable trip to Mure to visit favorite characters just in time for Christmas.  It was a great book!

 Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow.  Thank-you!

The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan

Jenny Colgan is my go-to author for a fun happy read.  I brought along The Bookshop on the Shore on a recent camping trip and had a great time reading it while watching the kids swim.  I really like how in a Jenny Colgan novel, the main characters are able to work through problems and find their way to a happy fulfilling life.

Zoe is a single mother struggling to meet ends meet in London.  She loves her son Hari, but can’t figure out why at age four, he still isn’t speaking.  Hari’s dad, Jaz, flies in and out of their lives as a DJ, but it too busy to help with the nitty gritty things like paying rent.  Jaz finally tells his sister, Surinder, about Zoe and Hari and she decides to help them out.  She gets Zoe a part time job helping her friend Nina with her bookmobile in Scotland and a second job as a nanny to three children at a grand estate.  Will Zoe be able to put her life back together in Scotland?  Will Hari be able to learn how to talk?  What is the mystery of the estate, the three children, their father, and their missing mother?

I loved this story.  It was enjoyable to have the characters of Nina, Surinder, and Lennox return from The Bookshop on the Corner, but this book stands on its own.  I was intrigued by the big house, Ramsey, his children, and his missing wife. The Bookshop on the Shore had a slight Jane Eyre vibe to it as Zoe tries to figure out the mystery and help the poor motherless children. I read the back of the book to my 9-year-old daughter Penelope and she predicted the ending.  She had me give her status updates to the story as I read along.  She was also satisfied by the story.  The happy ending may be predicted, but it is all about the journey along the way.  I liked that the story was able to discuss a variety of issues including mental health issues. 

I also love that this book loves books.  As with The Bookshop on the Corner, the traveling bookmobile bookstore is always trying to find the perfect book for patrons with Zoe at the helm with Nina laid up during her pregnancy.  Zoe is more about making money selling books to tourists than to the locals much to Nina’s horror.  Ramsey has a wonderful huge library in his home and is an antique book dealer, although he seems to like to collect the books more than he likes to sell them.  I loved the discussion of favorite books throughout the novel.  I just love reading about books!!

Overall, The Bookshop on the Shore was a perfect fun summer book.  I loved the Jane Eyre vibe, discussions of books, characters, discussions of mental illness, humor, and romance.  This book has it all!

Book Source:  Purchased at Barnes & Nobles

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Jenny Colgan is one of my favorite authors.  When life is stressful, I know that her stories will cheer me up and take me to a quaint village somewhere in the UK where a woman faces a crisis and finds a path forward through hard work doing what she has always loved. In this case, doing what she loves involves books, which I always love reading about.  As February is the saddest month of the year, I picked this light read for the February selection of the FLICKS Book and Movie Club (aka Rogue).  We meet tomorrow night at my house – we’ll see what everyone thought of the book.

Nina Redmond loves books.  She has the perfect job as a librarian and loves to match books with the perfect readers.  Her community decides to cut libraries and librarians, and instead have everything electronic and geared toward young people, she finds herself out of a job and adrift.  What should she do with life?  Unable to afford a store, she gets the grand idea of starting a bookstore in something she can afford, a van, and driving it around to match the perfect books with the perfect people. She moves to a small village and drives around to people that are yearning for books, but live without a library or a bookstore.  She also learns that she may be open to love as well.

I enjoyed this book.  I loved how Nina was able to take the dive and move someplace new with a career that she loves. She doesn’t make tons of money, but she finds happiness helping other people while meeting new ones.  I also loved the setting of the small village in Scotland.  It was quaint and cute.  

I will admit though that while this was an enjoyable book, I still love the Little Beach Street Bakery and The Café by the Sea the best of her novels so far.  It may be that they are series, so I know the characters better.  I saw that this book will have a sequel this year.  I can’t wait!

I found a great book club discussion list of questions complete with recipes at this link:

https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Bookshop-on-the-Corner-by-Jenny-Colgan

I only wish I would have found it before I picked up ingredients for desserts for hosting my book club.

I loved the message for readers for readers where Colgan describes all her favorite places to read and I enjoyed the humor.  Ironically as this is my book club pick, she says, “If you’re reading this for book group, I can only apologize and assume it’s 2:15 A.M. the night before the evening.”

Favorite Quotes:

“Dogs are tremendously good at showing you you don’t have to check your phone every two seconds to have a happy life.”

“The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things.”

“You know, women who find men who read really frightfully attractive.”

“Books were the best way Nina knew – apart from sometimes, music – to breach the barrier, to connect the internal universe to the external, the words acting merely as a conduit between two worlds.”

Overall, The Bookshop on the Corner is a love story about reading and fulfilling your dreams.  It’s a fun read.

Book Source:  A Gift from my Best Friend Jenn. Thank-you!