The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan

The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan
(Scottish Bookshop #2)
416 pages / 13 hrs, 11 mins

"A grand baronial house on Loch Ness, a quirky small-town bookseller, and a single mom looking for a fresh start all come together in this witty and warm-hearted novel by New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan."  --from the publisher

This is the second book I've read by the author, and I'm unsure what to think about her talent and her editor.  The tale is generally charming with likable characters, but the writing is disjointed and subplots are left by the wayside for long periods of time.  The most noticeable and easily corrected problem with the book is the number of times she used the word "absolutely."  It is absolutely astounding.  One young boy using it as part of his quirky character was endearing, but why didn't Colgan's editor catch the blatant overuse by everyone in the story?  I probably wouldn't have finished it except the reader of the audio version made it very entertaining.  I gave it three out of five stars, but that may be a bit generous.

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan
(Scottish Bookshop #1)
368 pages / 9 hrs, 13 mins

"Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion...and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.

"Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile--a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.

"From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there's plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that's beginning to feel like home...a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending."       --from the publisher

I loved this book through the first two-thirds and then I liked the last one-third.  (A good ending must be harder to write than a good beginning because I've found this same phenomenon in other books.)  Anyway, Nina is a delightful character who really starts to live and love life when her safe little corner of the world doesn't work for her anymore.  Colgan does a wonderful job writing about Nina's transformation.  I gave it four out of five stars (rounded up from three and a half).

Death of a Liar by M.C. Beaton

Death of a Liar: A Hamish MacBeth Mystery by M.C. Beaton --- 261 pages

Hamish MacBeth's new case starts when a woman who is known to be a habitual liar cries "wolf" once too often and is found murdered in her home in the remote Highland village of Cromish.

Feeling guilty because he ignored that last call, Hamish is determined to solve the crime, and soon finds circumstantial evidence that appears to link this death with two unpleasant newcomers who disappear abruptly from Hamish's own village of Lochdubh, with a preacher whom Hamish suspects is a clever con artist, and with a lonely old woman convinced the fairies are going to carry her off.  In the process, Hamish's constable Dick Fraser, is induced to move out of the Lochdubh police station with results that surprise and disconcert Hamish. Priscilla and Elspeth, two of Hamish's former flames, make brief appearances, and two new women arrive on the scene, but Hamish's luck in love is famously bad as ever.

Beaton's Hamish MacBeth is a reliably enjoyable cozy mystery mostly for the beauty of the remote Highlands setting and occasional folklore.

Click HERE and HERE to read reviews.

Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan

Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan --- 348 pages

Michael Logan, a Scottish journalist currently based in Kenya, drew on his experience covering riots, refugee camps and other such events in writing this, his first novel.

A top secret biological weapons project goes haywire when the bovine virus goes rogue and begins infecting animals all over Great Britain, beginning with cows in Scotland that turn into ravening flesh-eating zombie killers. Now the fate of the nation rests on four unwilling heroes: a reluctant teenage vegan, his perpetually stoned father; a lovelorn slaughterhouse worker, and the world's possibly most inept reporter. The author is the co-winner (along with David C. Logan) of the first ever Terry Pratchett "Any Where But Here, Any When But Now" Prize for debut novelists. You can visit the author at his web site, www.freelancelogan.com.

The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith

The Importance of Being Seven: The New 44 Scotland Street Novel b y Alexander McCall Smith --- 311 pages

Another McCall Smith novel is always a cause for rejoicing. The one is the latest in the 44 Scotland Street series revolving about a group of people who live in the Edinburgh New Town neighborhood, their ordinary doings and occasional adventures. There is six-year-old Bertie who longs to be seven and to escape the regimen of yoga and Italian lessons and psychotherapy imposed upon him by his self-absorbed mother Irene. There is Matthew and his new wife Elspeth embarking on the seas of matrimony (as it were) with no charts or compass. And there is Angus Lordie the artist with his dog Cyril, slowly feeling his way towards a deeper relationship with his longtime friend, Domenica Macdonald.

As always in McCall Smith's world, most people's intention are good even when their actions are confused, and the resulting problems can be sorted with patience, good humor and common sense. His stories are modern parables, showing us by example how to navigate the moral complexities that imbue each and every day of our lives..