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2024 Bookish Books Reading Challenge (Hosted by Yours Truly)

My Progress:


30 / 30 books. 100% done!

2024 Literary Escapes Challenge

- Alabama (1)
- Alaska (1)
- Arizona (1)
- Arkansas (1)
- California (11)
- Colorado (1)
- Connecticut (2)
- Delaware (1)
- Florida (3)
- Georgia (4)
- Hawaii (1)
- Idaho (2)
- Illinois (4)
- Indiana (4)
- Iowa (1)
- Kansas (1)
- Kentucky (1)
- Louisiana (1)
- Maine (1)
- Maryland (1)
- Massachusetts (4)
- Michigan (1)
- Minnesota (2)
- Mississippi (1)
- Missouri (1)
- Montana (1)
- Nebraska (1)
- Nevada (2)
- New Hampshire (1)
- New Jersey (1)
- New Mexico (1)
- New York (9)
- North Carolina (4)
- North Dakota (1)
- Ohio (3)
- Oklahoma (2)
- Oregon (2)
- Pennsylvania (2)
- Rhode Island (1)
- South Carolina (1)
- South Dakota (1)
- Tennessee (1)
- Texas (4)
- Utah (4)
- Vermont (2)
- Virginia (2)
- Washington (3)
- West Virginia (1)
- Wisconsin (1)
- Wyoming (2)
- Washington, D.C.* (2)

International:
- Argentina (1)
- Australia (5)
- Austria (1)
- Bolivia (1)
- Canada (3)
- China (2)
- England (25)
- France (1)
- Ghana (1)
- India (1)
- Indonesia (1)
- Ireland (4)
- Italy (1)
- Poland (2)
- Russia (2)
- Scotland (3)
- The Netherlands (1)

My Progress:


51 / 51 states. 100% done!

2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 50 books. 104% done!

2024 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge


36 / 50 books. 72% done!

Booklist Queen's 2024 Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

2024 52 Club Reading Challenge

My Progress:


51 / 52 books. 98% done!

2024 Build Your Library Reading Challenge

My Progress:


37 / 40 books. 93% done!

2024 Pioneer Book Reading Challenge


18 / 40 books. 45% done!

2024 Craving for Cozies Reading Challenge

My Progress:


25 / 25 cozies. 100% done!

2024 Medical Examiner's Mystery Reading Challenge

2024 Mystery Marathon Reading Challenge

My Progress


5 / 26.2 miles (4th lap). 19% done!

Mount TBR Reading Challenge

My Progress


48 / 50 books. 96% done!

2024 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge

My Progress:


98 / 109 books. 90% done!

Around the Year in 52 Books Reading Challenge

My Progress


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

Disney Animated Movies Reading Challenge

My Progress


137 / 165 books. 83% done!

The 100 Most Common Last Names in the U.S. Reading Challenge

My Progress:


88 / 100 names. 88% done!

The Life Skills Reading Challenge

My Progress:


32 / 80 skills. 40% done!
Saturday, November 30, 2019

Warm and Sweet, Bookshop Rom-Com Makes for Fun Reading

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Just when it seems nothing else can go wrong for Zoe O'Connell—a single mom struggling to keep up with her expensive, stressful life in London—something does.  A "reappraisal" on her crummy flat is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.  Knowing she'll get no help from her absent mum nor her charming, but always penniless ex, Zoe's at her wit's end.  She wants something better for her non-verbal 4-year-old, Hari, but how can she improve their situation when she has no money, no support system, and no hope that things will ever get better?

Enter Surinder, Hari's aunt.  A friend of Nina Redmond (heroine of The Bookshop on the Corner), who's looking for help with her bookmobile business, Surinder sets Zoe up with two jobs in a tiny town in the Scottish Highlands.  Zoe will help Nina out while also working as a nanny at the local "big house."  Desperate, Zoe has little choice but to accept.  Soon, she's doing her best to keep her three rowdy charges in line, help their father engage with his children, and keep a pregnant Nina from overworking herself.  Hari seems content in Kirrinfief, so Zoe's determined to make it work despite all the challenges she's facing.  Can she make a home for herself and her son out of a backward Scottish village?  When push comes to shove, will she stay or go?

Jenny Colgan is a new find for me.  I read The Bookshop on the Corner in 2017 and loved it, so I was eager to pick up its companion novel, The Bookshop on the Shore.  While the latter is not a sequel per se, it does feature the same town as well as some of the same characters from the former.  I loved dropping in on these old friends and being introduced to new ones.  Like its predecessor, The Bookshop on the Shore is warm, sweet, and funny.  I adored everything about it, from the setting to the writing to the characters, both new and familiar.  As much as I enjoyed The Bookshop on the Corner, I liked this one even better as it has more depth to it.  Colgan writes such fun books.  I definitely plan to keep exploring her backlist while eagerly awaiting her newest offerings.


Grade:


If this were a movie, it would be rated:


for language (a half dozen or so F-bombs, plus milder expletives) and innuendo

To the FTC, with love:  I bought a copy of The Bookshop on the Corner with a portion of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger.  Ha ha.
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Reading

<i>Reading</i>
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

Listening

<i>Listening</i>
The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth



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