This is a lovely stand-alone book by Jenny Colgan, full of her trademark empathy and humor. #TheSummerSkies is a story about coming home again and figuring what makes you happy (vs. what you think should make you happy).

Flying is in the blood for Morag MacIntyre whose great-grandfather started their family business MacIntyre Air, serving the small northern islands of Scotland’s archipelago with a single puddle-jumper. Although Morag had left the islands to fly bigger jets, after a particularly challenging flight where the jet she was co-piloting almost collided with a much smaller unexpected plane, she is back home following retraining. She has one more simulator flight to pass before returning to her job. Once she gets cleared to fly again, Morag is planning to do long haul flights and move to Dubai to join her boyfriend, Hayden.

In the meantime, her grandfather, who is still the pilot for MacIntyre Air is sick and unable to fly. Morag agrees to temporarily help him out. A bumpy landing during a storm leaves Morag stranded for a few days on Inchborn, a small island bird sanctuary that is inhabited by Gregor, the latest in a rotating cast of orthinologists, who do six-month stints on the island managing the sanctuary.

Being stranded on island with no power gives Morag space to think about what is really important to her. It was a pleasure to read about her journey—and to learn about flying and birds along the way!

Thanks to #NetGalley and #AvonBooks for the ARC!

What a delightful read! Thanks @Netgalley for the preview! The Summer Skies is a warm tale of people finding their destinies in courses far different than imagined. @JennyColgan brings to life characters I genuinely liked, with dialogue that doesn’t feel contrived, and that has wit and quirks that made the banter lively and fun to read. Set in Scotland, Jenny weaves intelligent characters, science, cooking, and flying into a beautiful tapestry that is wrapped with a bow of friendship and listening to one’s own heart. All of these elements makes for a book I loved and highly recommend! #TheSummerSkies #Scotland #fiction #Netgalley

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book.
3.5 stars
Promising start, kind of dragged for me in the middle (hence my rating), then picked up again with a strong finish. Great characters, can't go wrong with a Scotland setting. Jenny Colgan does it again. I love her writing. I was particularly drawn to Gregor who turned out to have a great sense of humor and the chemistry between him and Morag was a lovely, sweet build-up.

Expected release: July 11, 2023

Jenny Colgan is a must read author for me, as I always enjoy her Scottish settings and plots that generally include a bakery or bookstore of some sort.

In Summer Skies we again return to Scotland, and are introduced not to a baker or bookseller, but instead to a young female pilot, Morag.

Morag is a third generation pilot who recently experienced a significant in-air emergency and is unsure if she can continue to fly but returns home to help with her grandfather’s island-hopping air service anyway.

Not surprisingly, Morag finds herself torn between two romantic interests while she also tries to do the hard work of figuring who and what she wants to be in her life.

I enjoyed the writing, storyline, and characters in this book. The humor is also spot-on.

Thanks to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for this ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

This book was great! I couldn't put it down! The premise was fresh and new, which is hard for me to say as I read so much each year! Sometimes it feels as though I keep reading similar stories, but this was a so original!

Another wonderful read by Jenny Colgan. This book is set in the Scottish Highlands and surrounding islands( a beautiful area that should be on everyone's bucket list to see). Our main character, Morag, follows in the family tradition and becomes a pilot. But after a near miss while she is flying, her confidence is shattered. Returning home to help her ailing grandfather with his flight business, she discovers family and friends and what is really important to her. An enjoyable read,

I'll always purchase (and read) Jenny Colgan. This one was a very slow build...I almost put it aside. But once Morag landed on Inchborn the usual charm of Colgan's books took over.

What can I say? It’s Jenny Colgan! Except…this one was a bit of a snoozer. I have to be honest, it didn’t have the usual Jenny Colgan charm I have come to love. Just wasn’t for me, and come to think of it, neither was her last book. But the cover is a stunner!

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review and opinions are my own.

Another enjoyable read from Jenny Colgan! Morag has grown up in her grandfather's plane, and started flying as soon as she was able. Now she lives outside Heathrow, After a near miss with another plane, through no fault of her own, Morag is afraid to fly, but manages to fool those around her. When her grandfather becomes ill, she has to go home to Scotland to take over the route for a few days.

Once home, she realizes what her life has been missing, and maybe her fast paced London life isn't what she wants and needs?

Thank you Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for the ARC!

Thanks to Jenny Colgan and NetGalley for this digital ARC. Another gorgeous atmospheric book from Jenny Colgan, this one had a different feel than many of her other titles.

We are immersed in Morag's world of aviation from the start, and watch as she tries to navigate the pull of her old life. After an in-air emergency, she questions whether she will ever be able to pilot again. But answering the call to return home to help her Grandfather's aviation business, will she finally be able to put the fear away for good? A few unexpected days on a remote island will help Morag find the healing she needs.

Author Jenny Colgan spins another tender story set in the remote northern Scottish islands. The telling is gentle and the characters are well developed as souls are laid bare and challenges met. I find myself charmed by each book of hers which I have read and this one was no exception.

Morag McGinty, a commercial airline pilot, experiences a mid-air emergency which rattles her so fully, that she is uncertain whether she can continue. However, she convinces everyone that she is fine and ready to carry on. Then while on leave, she is summoned back home to the northern Scottish Isles to help out with her grandfather's island-hopping air service, while he convalesces. She convinces herself that as long as she is the co-pilot, she'll manage. When the day finally comes which tests her mettle, can she regain her moxy and be that strong, fearless person her loved ones believe her to be? Only time will tell.

I thank publisher, Harper Collins for having provided a complimentary copy of this advance reader's e-proof. Their generosity, however, has not influence this review - the words of which are mine alone.

Publisher: Harper Collins
Anticipated Publication date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 978-0063260429
Pages: 352

Jenny Colgan writes books for when I need a break, or need to feel happy and this one did not disappoint!! I love all her books

The Summer Skies
by Jenny Colgan
Pub Date: July 11, 2023
Harper Collins
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the digital file of this book.
New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan takes us to the gloriously windswept islands of northern Scotland, where we meet young Morag McGinty, who runs the puddle-jumper flights that serve the islands’ tiny but proudly feisty population.
I loved this book and will recommend it to readers.

Colgan has a gift of writing dialog, and this book is superb. The description of the islands is delightful.
4 stars

Happy sigh....another wonderful read by Jenny Colgan. Morag is a pilot. She comes from a long line of pilots but she's the first female pilot in her family. This is a lovely story about bravery, family loyalty, and figuring out what is really important in life. And now I want to go to the far north of Scotland...

I really enjoyed this lovely stand-alone novel by Jenny Colgan. Her characters are always diverse and quirky with more depth than you originally expect. And the setting, the northernmost islands off the Scottish coast are beautifully described. Morag, whose successful career as a pilot is based on skills she learned from her grandfather's island to island plane service. When he needs help she agrees to come back and fly his route for a few days. An incoming storm strands her on a remote island with one inhabitant, Gregor an ornithologist, living in an old abbey. And the sparks fly from there. This is a fun read and highly recommended.

What a lovely surprise this book turned out to be. The Summer Skies by Jenny Colgan tells the story of Morag MacIntyre (NOT McGinty, as the book description states) who is a third-generation pilot who has just lived through a near-collision in the air and is struggling to get past it. When she meets with HR after the incident, she meets Hayden (NOT Tim from flight school - did the person who wrote the book blurb even read the book??!) who seems to be the perfect man for her. I struggled with the first part of this book as it moved slowly, and I came very close to putting it into my did-not-finish (DNF) pile - until I reached Part Two, when the story picked up steam and I just couldn't put it down! Morag's grandfather, who had been flying the puddlejumper flights to the upper Scottish islands had taken ill and the family asked her to step in for a few days to fly the short flights for the family airline, MacIntyre Air. During a storm, Morag has to make an emergency landing on Inchborn, a small island with one resident, Gregor, an ornithologist. Although the two don't hit it off well at first, there is a certainly chemistry there. There is way more to the story than this but no spoilers; most importantly, this story has the happy ending I love so much. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

What a great, totally different kind of rom-com novel. I love the setting in the far north of Scotland, she sells the landscape so well that I want to go visit. And having a pilot as the female lead is so interesting and refreshing, I loved getting to know the characters. I am so grateful for a new Jenny Colgan favorite, I ate it up.

I have enjoyed all of Jenny Colgan's books, and this one was no exception. It was a good story with excellent character development and descriptions. The only thing that was a bit off-putting to me was all the technical language and description about flying-there could have been a lot less of this, in my opinion.
However, still a good read, and I won't hesitate to recommend it to our library patrons.

Morag McGinty is a third-generation pilot of a tiny plane-taxi service called MacIntyre Air that flies around the chain of islands off the north coast of Scotland. Morag loved the feeling of “bursting free the chains of gravity; soaring up through the clouds, bursting through, even on the grayest and dullest of days . . . the blue sky stretching ahead of you, the darker curve beyond all yours….”

She thought she should want more though, and now she was working out of Heathrow in London, co-piloting big planes, and flying around the world. She lost confidence, however, after a near miss, and had to take a work leave and attend some sessions with Hayden Telford, an HR consultant. Morag told him she was over it, because she didn’t want to lose her job, but she really wasn’t. Hayden was cute and seemed genuine, however, and Morag started dating him. Still, she struggled, and her family back in the tiny island town of Carso knew it.

She felt an obligation to return to Carso when the person who “did” for her beloved grandfather called. She told Morag Gramps was very sick with the flu, and they needed her to take over his routes for “a week mebbe.”

She agreed to come and help but only as a co-pilot. Gramps’ usual co-pilot, Erno, would pilot their plane Dolly, a Cessna Twin Otter, a plane Morag had been flying in since she was a little girl.

Erno grumpily agreed, but then events conspired to put Morag back in the pilot’s seat, and moreover, to cause her to get marooned on Inchborn Island, home of an ancient abbey, bird-watching station, chickens, a goat, and one ornithologist, Gregor Cameron, whom Morag regarded as a “monstrous weirdo.”

Gregor and the life he lived on his isolated island was in every way the opposite of Morag and her life, but offered Morag lessons she never knew she needed.

Evaluation: Jenny Colgan manages to be consistently satisfying in predictable ways but in such diverse circumstances in each book you hardly notice and certainly don’t object.

Her stories are lovely and charming, and you feel all warm inside after reading them.

"If you love teaching, you'll get promoted to being a headteacher and spend your time doing paperwork. If you love being a doctor, they'll make you head of hospital committees and so on. You'll probably end up a university administrator." So true.

AND… If you love the excitement of navigation and flying you’ll get promoted to long haul autopilot with sophisticated instruments flying… unless…

Jenny Colgan writes about Scotland and the archipelago with such love and pride. I read her books to be transported to green, lush isles surrounded by crashing seas and inhabited by flora and birds.

This story is about a young aeronaut figuring out her career path and looking for a romantic partner while feeling the pull of family and island life.

The writing is a tad bumpy in places, and the romance is typical strong, sometimes acerbic woman, with a need to rescue a troubled man… but then there is the background of Scotland and that’s where Jenny Colgan soars.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.