The Fragile Ordinary by Samantha Young

The Fragile Ordinary by Samantha Young - 376 pages

I am Comet Caldwell.

And I sort of, kind of, absolutely hate my name.

People expect extraordinary things from a girl named Comet. That she’ll be effortlessly cool and light up a room the way a comet blazes across the sky.

But from the shyness that makes her book-character friends more appealing than real people to the parents whose indifference hurts more than an open wound, Comet has never wanted to be the center of attention. She can’t wait to graduate from her high school in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the only place she ever feels truly herself is on her anonymous poetry blog. But surely that will change once she leaves to attend university somewhere far, far away.

When new student Tobias King blazes in from America and shakes up the school, Comet thinks she’s got the bad boy figured out. Until they’re thrown together for a class assignment and begin to form an unlikely connection. Everything shifts in Comet’s ordinary world. Tobias has a dark past and runs with a tough crowd—and none of them are happy about his interest in Comet. Targeted by bullies and thrown into the spotlight, Comet and Tobias can go their separate ways…or take a risk on something extraordinary.

The Quiet Side of Passion by Alexander McCall Smith

The Quiet Side of Passion: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel by Alexander McCall Smith --- 287 pages

One of the most delightful things about author Alexander McCall Smith is his ability to write wryly and affectionately about the ethical dilemmas of ordinary daily life. For the most part his characters are so likable that even their foibles disarm us, while the occasional villain suffers a satisfactory comeuppance.

In the 12th book in his Sunday Philosophy Club series, it is glorious summer in Edinburgh and Isabel has more on her plate than she can handle. As her husband Jamie gently reminds her, Isabel's tendency to get involved in other peoples' problems causes complications in her own life.

There's Patricia, the mother of their son Charlie's nursery school friend Basil, quick to take advantage of free babysitting. But is she also scamming the man she alleges is Basil's father for child support?    Isabel's devoted housekeeper is spending most of her time minding Charlie and his younger brother Magnus, and the house desperately needs a top to bottom cleaning. Isabel's niece, Cat, has taken up with a tattoo artist, and has a bad habit of expecting Isabel to drop everything at a moment's notice to help out at Cat's shop. And Isabel has much to do preparing the next issue of the Review of Applied Ethics.

Jamie persuades Isabel that she needs to hire more help for herself: an au pair to help with the boys and the housework, and a part-time assistant to help with the Review. Unfortunately, Antonia, the exuberant Italian au pair, works hard during the day but parties even harder at night. And Claire, the graduate student hired as Isabel's assistant for the Review, brings with her the unwelcome interference of Isabel's old antagonist, Professor Lettuce. Has Isabel's desire for an efficient and orderly home and and career backfired into even more chaos instead?

Click HERE to read the review from the Christian Science Monitor

A Time of Love and Tartan by Alexander McCall Smith

A Time of Love and Tartan: The New 44 Scotland Street Novel by Alexander McCall Smith --- 247 pages

Number 12 in the 44 Scotland Street Series by the inimitable McCall Smith does not disappoint, although the mood in this latest installment becomes rather dour at times, as if even McCall Smith's invincible optimism has met its limits.

His usual cast of characters seem uneasily aware that even Edinburgh is not immune to change; life is uncertain, love can be fleeting, and the brave new world lurks like a wolf waiting to devour the unwitting. McCall Smith looks into that abyss and what we see is not pretty.

Yet in the end kindness and decency reassert themselves. The book ends with the promise of brighter and kinder days ahead even for young Bertie Pollack and his father. Readers will rejoice.

Click HERE for a review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE for a review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE for a review from Birlinn (UK).

Click HERE for a review from the Washington Times.

A Distant View of Everything by Alexander McCall Smith

A Distant View of Everything: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel by Alexander McCall Smith --- 240 pages

The eleventh novel in this gentle series. Isabel and Jamie have a new baby, Magnus. They are amused and mildly dismayed by the distinct lack of enthusiasm displayed by four-year-old brother Charlie. “Don’t need a baby,” Charlie says, and suggests several ways to dispose of the interloper.

Nonetheless, Isabel can still find time to edit her "Review of Applied Ethics," fill in at her niece Cat's delicatessen,  and help out an old friend who fears her matchmaking efforts may have backfired this time. Nothing much ever really happens in this series. The minimal plot is there to provide opportunities for Isabel to engage in conversations and ponder ethical dilemmas. After all, Isabel is a philosopher, so what could be more natural? She at least acknowledges that hers is a privileged existence. In one episode in this book, she actually comes up against (briefly) the unprivileged reality of ordinary life and finds herself out of her depth. Sadly but predictably, she retreats. I'm not sure what Isabel would do if she faced a serious, imminent moral dilemma with no easy resolution.

 This is not a real mystery novel, with a crime, and lots of false clues and misleading actions that need to be sorted out. But if you want to escape to a pocket utopia where you too can while away a few hours in the best of all possible worlds, Isabel will be happy to oblige.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from nudge-book.com blog.

The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

The Revolving Door of Life: The New 44 Scotland Street Novel by Alexander McCall Smith --- 282 pages

The tenth installment in McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street Series is charming, droll, and poignant all at once, maintaining the high standard of story-telling and gentle satire we've come to expect from McCall Smith.

In this episode, the much put-upon Bertie Pollack, his hapless father Stuart and his small brother Ulysses have temporarily escaped from the tyranny of Irene (one of the most fearsome mothers in fiction).  Irene is causing havoc in a Bedouin harem (see Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers), and Stuart has asked his mother to help out with the boys.  Nicola, arriving from Portugal, transforms Bertie's life and his fervent wish is for his grandmother to "please stay forever."

Meanwhile Matthew and Elspeth and their triplets have moved to a big house in the country, formerly owned by the doubtfully titled Duke of Johannesburg. When Matthew discovers a secret room and long forgotten treasure, he faces an ethical dilemma: who is the owner and beneficiary of this treasure?  Meanwhile, Matthew's assistant at the art gallery, Pat, is facing a dilemma of her own.  She is convinced her widower and well-to-do father is being taken in by a con artist who is after his money. She reluctantly enlists the help of her former boy friend, the narcissistic Bruce, to expose the schemer.  But Bruce seems to have met his match --- a woman even more ruthlessly opportunistic than he is! And there are dark schemes going on within the Association of Scottish Nudists' headquarters in nearby Moray Place.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read a review from the Cultural Voyager.

The Novel Habits of Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

The Novel Habits of Happiness: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel by Alexander McCall Smith --- 257 pages

This is the tenth novel in the Sunday Philosophy Club Series, that has all the charming appeal of leisurely afternoon chats with a very old friend.

Isabel Dalhousie asks herself whether she has a tendancy to be severe in her judgments of others. In particular, she’s having qualms about her negative reaction to a pair of rival philosophers who are intruding on her patch with their scheme to take control of Edinburgh's Philosophical Institute. Then there's her ambivalent relationship with her niece, Cat, who has embarked upon yet another unsuitable romance with a dishwasher repairman.

Isabel simply can’t help getting involved in other people’s problems. Isabel’s husband Jamie has his qualms about this, but he knows that this tendancy is also what he finds so attractive in her.

This time around Isabel has been asked to help the mother of a young boy who believes he had a previous life with another family and expresses a wish to return to them. Isabel finds this unbelievable but, not wishing to further upset the boy's mother, agrees to investigate whether there is any factual basis to the boy's descriptions of the other family and home.

As the reviewer in Kirkus observes,  The Novel Habits of Happiness is "the wooliest of Isabel's ten appearances to date and the one that makes the most decided case for the mental digression as a structural principle" in the writing of fiction. In short, readers either love Isabel or hate her.  There seems to be no middle ground.  Having read and enjoyed all ten books in the series so far, I qualify as an Isabel-lover.

Click HERE to read the Kirkus review in full.

Click HERE to read the New York Journal of Books review by an Isabel lover.

Click HERE to read the Washington Times review by an Isabel hater.

Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers by Alexander McCall Smith

Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers: The New 44 Scotland Street Novel by Alexander McCall Smith --- 295 pages

The ninth book in this charming series about the inhabitants of 44 Scotland Street, Edinburgh and their various assorted friends and families.  The thread that draws these vignettes together is the much anticipated seventh birthday of Bertie Pollack, but interspersed with the indignities visited upon the long-suffering Bertie by his domineering mother Irene, we find new installments in the continuing stories of newlyweds Angus and Domenica coping with a difficult house guest; Matthew and Elspeth house hunting with triplets, Danish au pairs, and the Duke of Johannesburg in tow; Pat McGregor's disconcerting discovery of her father's secret love life; and a new development in Big Lou's quest for purpose and happiness.

A gently comic slice of life, this is a series that leaves the reader refreshed and hopeful that, despite our faults and foibles, there is still hope for humanity.

Click HERE to read a review from the UK Sunday Express.

Sunshine on Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith

Sunshine on Scotland Street: The New 44 Scotland Street Novel by Alexander McCall Smith --- 297 pages

The eighth book in McCall Smith's gently comic series about the daily adventures of the inhabitants of one small corner of modern Edinburgh.

In this latest installment, Angus Lordie and Domenica Macdonald finally make it to the altar despite several near-disasters along the way. They depart on their honeymoon and leave Angus's dog, Cyril, to the care of young Bertie Pollack. Bertie's delight in having, even if only temporarily, a dog of his own, is threatened by his domineering mother Irene. But, just possibly, Bertie's dad,  Irene's henpecked husband Stuart, might be about to assert himself.

Matthew, Elspeth and their boys become the reluctant stars of a Danish filmmaker's documentary until Matthew introduces Bo to Big Lou. Bo instantly switches his focus to Lou, and a video interview with her goes viral in Denmark. Meanwhile that insufferable egotist Bruce meets his doppelganger and is inveigled into a mad scheme with surprising results.  Angus and Domenica return from their honeymoon. Angus and Cyril are reunited in a scene sure to bring a lump to the throats of dog lovers everywhere, and Angus and Domenica give their first dinner party as a married couple.

Click HERE and HERE to read two more reviews of Sunshine on Scotland Street.