5. The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Listened to eAudio/Chirp
narrated  by Lucy Price-Lewis
Unabridged audio (9:13)
2016, William Morrow/Harper Collins
384 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 1/10/2020
Goodreads rating:  3.85 - 41,335 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting:   Birmingham, England, and rural Scotland

First line/s:  "The problem with good things that happen is that very often they disguise themselves as awful things."

My comments:  Set first in Birmingham, England, then moving shortly to the Scottish Highlands (and read beautifully with both British and Scottish accents) Nina purchases a HUGE van that she turns into a bookshop on wheels.  She's never driven anything like this, never mind a stick shift, but she has otherworldly luck in purchasing books everyone want for next to nothing, creating s huge  clientele, and actually making her new business a success.  Throw in a weird relationship with a midnight train, a Latvian immigrant, a gruff sheep farmer, and a cast of well-meaning characters and you have one entertaining - though somewhat unbelievable - story.  A simple, clean love story for book lovers.

Goodreads synopsis:  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.

38. The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

Listened to audio - borrowed from CCLS
read by Imogen Church
Unabridged audio (8:58) borrowed from CCLS
2018 St. Martin's Press
304 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 4/11/2019
Goodreads rating: 4.06 - 8976 ratings
My rating:4.5
Setting: contemporary York, England

First line/s: "A book is the match in the smoking second between strike and flame."

My comments:  This story was told by hopping back and forth between 1999, 2013, and 2016.  Intricate characters were developed as the protagonist, Loveday Cardew told her story.  Abusive relationships, mental illness, foster care, grief and despair, forgiveness and love of all sorts are the main themes of the fascinating story  Another winner.  The only not-so-great part was that the reader's voice sounded much older than that of a 25-year-old.  Quite disconcerting, although she read it beautifully.

Goodreads synopsis:  The Lost for Words Bookshop is a compelling, irresistible, and heart-rending novel, perfect for fans of The Storied Life of AJ Fikryand The Little Paris Bookshop.
          Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look carefully, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are some things Loveday will never, ever show you. Into her hiding place - the bookstore where she works - come a poet, a lover, and three suspicious deliveries. Someone has found out about her mysterious past. Will Loveday survive her own heartbreaking secrets?