Librarian Nina Redmond enjoys recommending books to people as part of her work. When the library she works at unexpectedly closes, she is left unemployed with no job prospects. What she isn’t left with is a deficit of books. When you combine the books that Nina already owns with the free books she took when the library was getting rid of them, all her books are causing her house to practically collapse. Nina’s dream is to open a bookstore (maybe a bookshop on the corner??) but when she sees an advertisement for a van for sale, she decides she will fill this van with books and drive around to people selling books on the side of the road and at open markets. Nina’s mobile bookstore takes her to the Scottish countryside where she is surrounded by noisy townspeople, men in kilts, and people who love to read.
This was another book club pick. Of the people who actually read the book, everyone agreed that it was a fun little book that they could totally imagine as a Hallmark movie. It has all the rom-com characteristics – a funny and supportive friend/sidekick, a small town, an enemy to lovers romance, and a quirky heroine on a quest to find out who she is. The love interests were pretty predictable, as well as the ending, but aren’t all Hallmark movies like that?
This book is really a love letter to books. Nina is constantly referencing books in her thoughts and her daily life and always knows the perfect book to recommend to every person she meets. If you are looking for some new titles to add to your TBR pile, this book has plenty of them.
The only thing that really bothered me with this book was the love interests. There are two love interests and both are questionable. One was an immigrant freight train conductor whose interactions with Nina consisted of the two leaving books and notes in a tree that the conductor could reach out and grab when the train went by (I don’t know how this is possible but I guess it can happen in a book). Unfortunately, he ended up having a family in his home country so that was that.
The other was a man who was in the middle of a contentious divorce. That was a bit of a red flag for me. The further issue was, and this is just an issue in my mind, but when we first meet this other love interest he is described as grumpy and rude and for some reason I had the impression he was a mean old man. But then later we find out he is in his early 30s. However because I already had this old man impression of him, it was hard for me to envision him as a dashing love interest.
One thing to note – although this book is called The Bookshop on the Corner, there is no actual bookshop on the corner. I kept waiting for Nina to sell her van and move into an actual bookshop but that never happens. Apparently, the U.K. name of this book is The Little Shop of Happily-Ever-After and the title was changed for the U.S.
This is a quick read if you are looking for something fun and light-hearted. In fact, I think I read the whole book in a few hours the morning of my book club meeting. I’m not sure if this is a series but it looks like there is a sort of sequel to this book called The Bookshop on the Shore.
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