Library Journal
10/01/2016
For young librarian Nina Redmond, nothing brings greater satisfaction than placing the perfect book in the hands of eager readers. To her dismay, her library in Birmingham, England, is downsizing and changing its focus. This presents petite, timid Nina with an opportunity to follow a dream of creating a bookstore on wheels. Relocating to the Scottish Highlands is an uncharacteristic act of daring for her. Driving an unwieldy mobile bookstore and living in a modernized remote barn introduces her to a world of small towns and stunning wide open spaces, along with a community of hungry readers. Nina blossoms as she matches books with both the young and old, all while engaging in two romantic flirtations. Who will win her heart, Lennox, a brusque sheep farmer working through a bitter divorce, or Marek, a lonely Latvian train engineer who leaves her romantic notes? VERDICT Colgan's latest (after Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery) gently acknowledges the UK's recent library funding problem as well as the new roles libraries are assuming. Scotland is a bonny setting for this funny, winsome novel that will appeal to fans of Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop.—Gloria Drake, Oswego P.L. Dist., IL
OCTOBER 2016 - AudioFile
What does 29-year-old Nina Redmond, a British librarian, do when budget cuts take her job and close the libraries? Why, she moves to the Highlands of Scotland and opens a bookstore on wheels, continuing to match the perfect book with the perfect reader. Narrator Lucy Price-Lewis creates a comfortable atmosphere as she brings these characters to life. In spite of a slow start with an overly long author’s note identifying ways and places to read, the story is an entertaining look at the power of the right book in the right hands at the right time. Price-Lewis moves easily from British accents to Scots brogues. She gives Nina a believable mix of confidence and uncertainty as she finds a new path. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2016-07-05
What’s a shy English librarian to do when she’s downsized out of a job and her only hope for remaining employed is to become a social media–savvy coordinator of online content?For 29-year-old Nina, it’s time to pursue her dream of opening a small bookshop. After all, since no one reads anymore, the library system is practically throwing away its books, and no will mind if Nina rescues them like orphans and finds them new homes. Certainly her roommate, the beautiful Surinder, will be pleased to rid their apartment of the architecture-imperiling weight of piles of novels. But real estate is expensive, so Nina decides to buy a van and travel around in a mobile bookstore. She locates the perfect vehicle in Kirrinfief, Scotland, where her real adventures begin. Soon enough, she’s relocated to the Highlands, and her life is newly populated with delightfully quirky characters, including Marek, a Latvian train engineer and romantic hero, who begins exchanging love letters and books of poetry with Nina on a tree at a railway crossing; Ainslee, a mercurial teenage girl eager for a job yet wary of revealing anything about her home life; and Lennox, Nina’s grumpy landlord, who’s separated from his posh wife and who increasingly occupies Nina’s thoughts. Amid the gorgeous scenery of Scotland, Nina sets out to find the right book for everyone in her new town. With a keen eye for the cinematic, Colgan (Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery, 2016, etc.) is a deft mistress of romantic comedy; Nina’s story is laced with clever dialogue and scenes set like jewels, just begging to be filmed. A charming, bracingly fresh happily-ever-after tale with playful nods to the Outlander series.
