The gorgeous new book from Jenny Colgan that Goodreads reviewers are calling: 'A massive hug in book form', 'utterly charming', 'magical', 'heartwarming', 'feel good', 'a breath of fresh air', 'easily one of the best books I have read this year', 'perfect feel-good fare for the summer', 'a lovely, heartwarming read' ***** Escape to the Scottish Highlands where a tiny bookshop perches on the edge of a loch Zoe is a single mother, sinking beneath the waves trying to cope by herself in London. Hari, her gorgeous little boy is perfect in every way - except for the fact that he just doesn't speak, at all. When her landlord raises the rent on her flat, Zoe doesn't know where to turn. Then Hari's aunt suggests Zoe could move to Scotland to help run a bookshop. Going from the lonely city to a small village in the Highlands could be the change Zoe and Hari desperately need. Faced with an unwelcoming boss, a moody, distant bookseller named Ramsay Urquart, and a band of unruly children, Zoe wonders if she's made the right decision. But Hari has found his very first real friend, and no one could resist the beauty of the loch glinting in the summer sun. If only Ramsay would just be a little more approachable... Dreams start here... 'Wonderful story with a hint of magic about it. Just lovely' - Katie Fforde 'A funny warm book with fantastic characters... and books!' - Sophie Kinsella 'Gorgeous location, dancing dialogue and characters you'll fall in love with. Irresistible!' - Jill Mansell 'The Bookshop on The Shore is a charming, heartwarming, gobble-it-all-up-in-one-sitting kind of book, a tale of new beginnings with characters you'll love and root for from the very first page.' - Mike Gayle 'Such a sweet tale and beneath the surface she deals honestly and movingly with poverty, anxiety and loss. You read it quickly, but you won't forget it.' - Keith Stuart

Zoe is a single mother sinking beneath the waves as she tries to cope by herself in London. Hari, her gorgeous little boy, is perfect in every way, except for the fact that he just doesn't speak. When her landlord raises the rent on her flat, Zoe doesn't know where to turn - until she discovers an opportunity for not one but two jobs in the Scottish Highlands, and decides this could be the change she desperately needs. Faced with her new boss Ramsay and his three unruly children, she begins to wonder if she's made a terrible mistake. But Hari has found his very first real friend, and no one could resist the beauty of the loch glinting in the summer sun. If only Ramsay would just be a little more approachable...

"The feel-good summer read you've been looking for! ★★★★★" "I love J C Williams! I'm a happier person with his books in my life." "Deliciously funny, poignant and totally uplifting. I defy you to not smile reading this book." Libby Tebbit had absolutely had her fill of big-city life. So, when presented with the opportunity to take over her gran's shop, The Bookshop by the Beach, she'd have been crazy to turn it down, right? Idyllic notions of lazy days by the ocean shore, shooing away the surplus eligible bachelors circling around her like squawking gulls, filled her head. These things were certain to await her, she felt confident, in this next glorious chapter of her life - this wonderful seaside adventure on the Isle of Man. Only her business acumen was about as useless as her choice in men. Still, nothing ventured nothing gained. And, besides, what's the worst that could happen? Well, quite a lot as she'd soon discover. In a relatively short amount of time, a business that'd operated fairly successfully for forty years was on its knees - and, sadly, Libby's dance card was also emptier than her bank account. She wasn't ready to let go of her dream so easily. Not just yet. All she needed, then, was a plan to turn around the ailing fortunes of The Bookshop by the Beach, and fast! The feel-good, romantic comedy read for the summer. If you enjoy Sophie Kinsella or JOJO Moyes then you'll adore this book.

In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop -- the only bookshop -- in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge her neighbors' lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Her warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, the shop is apparently ... haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: that a town that lacks a bookshop isn't always a town that wants one.

The women who spent their childhood summers in a small southern town discover it harbors secrets as lush as the marshes that surround it... Bonny Blankenship’s most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Amid the sand dunes and oak trees draped with Spanish moss, they swam and wished for happy-ever-afters, then escaped to the local bookshop to read and whisper in the glorious cool silence. Until the night that changed everything, the night that Lainey’s mother disappeared. Now, in her early fifties, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children. During lazy summer days and magical nights, they reunite with bookshop owner Mimi, who is tangled with the past and its mysteries. As the three women cling to a fragile peace, buried secrets and long ago loves return like the tide. READERS GUIDE INSIDE

This Element surveys the place of the bookstore in the creative imagination (the fantasies of the bookstore) through a study of novels in which bookstores play a prominent role in the setting or plot. Nearly 500 'bookstore novels' published since the first in 1917 have been identified. The study borrows the concept of 'meaningful locations' from the field of human geography to assess fictional bookstores as narrative events rather than static backgrounds. As a meaningful location, the bookstore creates the potential for events that can occur both within the place of the store and in the wider space within which it functions. Elements of the narrative space include its spatio-temporal location, its locale or composition, and the events which these elements generate to define the bookstore's sense of place.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Bookshop on the Corner and The Cafe by the Sea comes another enchanting, unforgettable novel of a woman who makes a fresh start on the beautiful Scottish Island of Mure—only to discover life has more surprises in store for her. When Flora MacKenzie traded her glum career in London for the remote Scottish island of Mure, she never dreamed that Joel—her difficult, adorable boss—would follow. Yet now, not only has Flora been reunited with her family and opened a charming café by the sea, but she and Joel are taking their first faltering steps into romance. With Joel away on business in New York, Flora is preparing for the next stage in her life. And that would be…? Love? She’s feeling it. Security? In Joel’s arms, sure. Marriage? Not open to discussion. In the meanwhile, Flora is finding pleasure in a magnificent sight: whales breaking waves off the beaches of Mure. But it also signals something less joyful. According to local superstition, it’s an omen—and a warning that Flora’s future could be as fleeting as the sea-spray… A bracing season on the shore sets the stage for Jenny Colgan’s delightful novel that’s as funny, heartwarming, and unpredictable as love itself.