Fans of Jenny Colgan will happily return to the Scottish setting of <i>The Bookshop on the Corner</i> and <i>The Bookshop on the Shore</i>, this time nestled in the delightful city of Edinburgh. Protagonist Carmen is the younger sister of Sofia - successful lawyer, wife, and mother. When Carmen loses her job, she winds up living in the basement with Sofia's nanny. But as she slowly gets to know her nieces and nephew and begins to revive the failing bookstore of one of Sofia's clients, Carmen also meets a couple of prospective dates. Will this perpetually resentful younger sister choose the jetsetting author or the quiet guest lecturer at the local university?

As fun as the story is with its misunderstandings, rivalry between Carmen and nanny Skylar for the notice of the guys, and carefully revealed backstory of the bookshop's owner - what really captured my attention was the strong sense of place. Edinburgh is one of my favorite places, and the city comes through as almost another character rather than just the setting of the book. The castle high above, Holyrood Palace at the other end of the Royal Mile, the way so many of the homes and shops in the Old Town seem to grow organically from the hillsides...every description captures the city perfectly.

It was also a pleasure to have Ramsay and Zoe from <i>The Bookshop on the Shore</i> make appearances. After all, it makes sense that a rare bookdealer like Ramsay would know a collector and merchant like Mr. McCredie. Colgan's stories always have an element of getting a second chance at life (and love) for her characters. This one is no exception and has the added charm of happening in a lovely city at Christmas.

Out of a job and down on her luck, family black sheep Carmen takes a job at an old bookstore that is about to go out of business. If she can help the shop make enough money during the Christmas holidays, she can rescue the elderly owner from bankruptcy and make a future for herself. This is such a charming story, set in Edinburgh over the winter holidays, with a cast of lovable characters. I look forward to recommending this to readers who enjoy gentle, sweet holiday romances, spiced up with sophisticated humor.

My goodness - The Christmas Book Shop by Jenny Colgan is one of the most charming, delightful, uplifting books I have read in a very long time.  The characters are so authentic and humanly flawed I just fell in love with all of them.  Carmen is down on her luck, out of work, and living back home with her parents when her older very successful sister gets her a job working in a bookshop that is on its last leg.  As you follow Carmen on her new adventure as she starts her new job, gets to met many new interesting people , and begins to truly get to know her sister, nieces and nephew, you can’t help but get swept up into the holiday season in Edinburg.  This is the first Jenny Colgan book I have read and even though I usually don’t like romances in general , I throughly enjoyed this book.  I can see myself pulling this one off the shelf and rereading it every Christmas for years to come.  If you only read one book this holiday season, it must be this one.

This is my first read from Jenny Colgan and it will not be my last!! If you want a wonderful, uplifting book, then this is the one! It has a Hallmark Christmas movie vibe, but that’s not a bad thing. I love the characters and did find myself smiling quite a bit!! Really enjoyed the writing!!

As a fan of Jenny Colgan books, this addition to her collection was just what was expected. A 30ish woman needs a job and goes to live with her sister in Edinburgh to take a job in a floundering old bookshop to help her lawyer sister's client. She uses the skills she learned working in a department store to re-imagine the shop and along the way meets several eccentric customers. I enjoy when Colgan throws in characters from her other books and it's like meeting old friends again. This story is a testament to sisterhood, friendship, and finding the unexpected wonders of life. It's a great feel good,, warmhearted Christmas story.

Oh, I LOVED this book! Jenny Colgan knocked it out of the park again! However, this felt like a much deeper piece by her than others I have read. It had brilliant character development and such believable characters. The romance felt meaningful and I just adored this. Well done. Really got me into the Christmas spirit in August :)

Carmen and Sofia are not close sisters so Carmen is dreading being forced to accept the job Sofia has found her and the room in Sofia's house. Sofia is an overachiever - wife, mother, lawyer who is pregnant with her fourth chid and Carmen has no job, no direction and is not fond of kids. Will the sisters find a way to co-exsist and change the patterns of the past? Will Carmen be able to help save the bookstore where she is working? Plus Carmen meets 2 very different men and this raises more questions. A lovely story for the holidays.

I have loved the Scottish Bookshop by Jenny Colgan since the first chapter of The Bookshop on the Corner, so when I saw The Christmas Bookshop, I knew I just needed it.

The Christmas Bookshop really hit home with me, as it is set in Edinburgh, which is one city that I wish I had visited before I emigrated to America, in a bookshop (every bookworm's dream) and it is centered around sisters, which I can totally relate to.

Carmen is our main character in the book, She feels like she has constantly being compared to her much older and "perfect" sister, who went to university and is a lawyer and has 3 "perfect" kids and blah, blah, blah... But after being laid off from her job as a sales assistant at the local haberdashery, her mother suggested (pretty much strong-armed) that Carmen go and work in the temporary job that her lawyer sister Sophia found for her in Edinburgh.

But when Carmen arrives at Sophia’s, it is as tense as she expected, especially with her perfect sister and her perfect home and their perfect nanny, but things are definitely perfect at Mr. McCredie’s Bookshop.

But Carmen and Sophia’s story doesn’t run smoothly as secrets, hard feelings, toxic people, a baby, misunderstanding, budding love, and a magic potion, make The Christmas Bookshop the most magical gift this year!

Yet again Jenny Colgan weaves a magical story in The Christmas Bookshop, that warms your heart and feeds your soul!

I'm a sucker for any book about bookstores, books, reading, etc. It's just who I am at my core. So it follows that when I saw this book available on NetGalley, I requested to read it. I'm now sorry I did. The characters (with only a couple of exceptions) were hard to like or to even connect with. Sofia was the always perfect child, raising her own mini-me in Pippa. Carmen was the constant failure, and Sofia has a clone of Carmen in Phoebe. Jack, Sofia's youngest child until the new baby was born, is just a boy--but he's all boy. This was my first book to read by Jenny Colgan, and I'm not sure I will read others by her. It just wasn't a good first introduction.

Carmen loses her job, and her mother convinces Sofia to help her find another one. One of Sofia's clients has a bookstore that's about to go under and Sofia feels this is exactly the right fit for Carmen.

Carmen's and Sofia's relationship is strained, at best, but the meddling of Carmen's parents and Sofia nearly drives Carmen over the edge. In revamping the store, Carmen comes into contact with a best-selling author who is all fluff and no substance, a dendrologist who is no fluff and all substance, and a shopkeeper who is rather absent-minded.

The language in the dialogs is rather coarse and adds nothing to the plot or the story at all. Carmen's mien is quite antagonistic toward those around her and toward her own circumstances. Sofia comes across as a too-good-to-be-true daughter/wife/mother. The other characters seem to just fill space in the book.

Two stars.

William Morrow and Custom House and NetGalley.com provided the copy I read for this review. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

Carmen Hogan is nearly 30, boyfriend-less, and still working in the department store she’d started in during high school. She feels like a failure compared to her older sister Sofia, an Edinburgh lawyer with a handsome international-lawyer husband, 3 children and a fourth on the way in a month, a lovely house, a Range Rover, and a nanny.

When the department store closes, Carmen has to move back in with her parents and try to find another job, which is difficult to do in her dying west-coast Scottish town. Sofia has a client that needs help in his dying bookstore in Edinburgh, and convinces Carmen (both of them reluctant) to move there and become Mr. McCredie’s shop assistant, just until they could find a buyer for the shop. Carmen could stay in Sofia’s basement bedroom, and would also help babysit on the nights the nanny, Skylar, had to go take classes.

When Carmen arrives at the shop, it is a dusty, disorganized mess. Carmen’s old boss, Mrs. Marsh, now residing in Edinburgh, stops by and gives Carmen some advice in her imperious manner, admonishing her to clean up the shop, get to know the stock, and take advantage of the coming Christmas holiday.

She also gets to know two vastly different men who develop an interest in her: internationally famous self-help author Blair Pfenning, and local dendrologist (tree expert) Oke Benezet.

As Carmen warms to her role, she gets to know and love the customers, and other shopkeepers on Victoria Street, and even Sofia’s kids, whom she had initially dismissed as noisy and bratty. In fact, she later tells Sofia’s daughter Phoebe, she had never liked any children at all before. But of course, all that changes….

Evaluation: This lovely feel-good Christmas story will melt your heart. It is full of Colgan’s trademark snarky and self-deprecating humor, but filtered through the gauzy, snowy glitter of Christmas. There's even a hint of magic, although it might just be another way to show how love works. It is a love letter to sisters, to Edinburgh, and a celebration of joy and friendship. Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to make me want to go back to Edinburgh, but this book definitely added to that desire!

A sweet Christmas story from one of my favorite authors. When Carmen loses her job, her only viable prospect is to take a position working in an about-to-go-out-of-business Edinburgh bookshop. Her perfect, successful lawyer sister Sophia has procured her the job, but Carmen isn't looking forward to having her sister rescue her or to living in Sophia's perfect house with her perfect family. To top it off, Carmen's under pressure to turn the bookshop around in order to keep it from going under.

Colgan's characters are vividly written, and she makes Chrstmastime Edinburgh come alive. The portrayal of the complicated relationship between sisters rings true, and if the romance is slightly sappy . . . well, it's Christmas, in Scotland, in a book store! It's hard to imagine a cozier holiday read. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys Hallmark movies and everyone who dreams of working in a bookshop across the pond.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced review copy!

A fun new setting for a Colgan novel. Now Edinburgh sounds as fascinating as her other settings.
Sure, there's the standard introduction of two potential love interests--which one will she pick? but I think the book could have done without it. Let the character improve her life without depending on a man. The sibling rivalry was well done.

Readers will fall in love with Jenny Colgan's new book and her endearing characters...and reading a Christmas book in July is better than air conditioning!!! Thank you Netgalley for making this book available in advance.

Great feel good story. I love how Colgan introduces new characters but ties them together with her previous stories by intersecting their lives in subtle ways. Stories about bookshops are always a favorite. Add Christmas to that and you have to enjoy it.

After losing her retail job, Carmen is convinced/coerced to stay with her perfect sister Sofia and her 3 kids. With her sister's help, Carmen gets a job at a very old, almost out of business bookstore. A book about the power of family, friendship and community. A few of Colgan's other characters showed up which is always a nice treat for fans. A lovely holiday read even though I read the whole thing in a hot, stormy July day!

Another happy charmer from Jenny Colgan. Taking place in a dusty, largely unvisited, book store in Edinburgh, this story brings a sparkling array of oddball (not super realistic but very lovable) characters including a Quaker dendrologist from Brazil, a self-important and extremely handsome self-help author, an all-too-perfect sister (complete with unfortunately charming offspring) and an old recluse with potentially shameful secrets. Add a magic shop, the Ormiston Yew, and a terribly annoying yoga slinging blonde nanny with a nasty streak and you have the perfect recipe for a light, fun, heartwarming read.

I just really love Jenny Colgan. Her covers look like fluff but the books themselves are surprisingly smart and fun to read. Highly recommend for you holiday collection.

A trip to a magical winter in Edinburgh. A delightful Jenny Colgan book that won’t disappoint! A young woman coming into her own, facing her fears and challenges head on and soaring

Another gem from Jenny Colgan. A recommended purchase for collections where her other titles and lighter WF are popular.

The style of this book is very different from the others by this author and not necessarily in a positive way. Perhaps it's my age--I definitely have a lot less patience these days for things I find tedious or boring. If a reader doesn't mind whingy children and sibling discord mixed with a bit of interesting bookshop work then they might like this new chic-lit-ish style novel set in Edinburgh, Scotland. The plot seemed solid enough, and I really enjoyed a number of other books by this author, but this one seemed like it must have been a chore to write; it's missing all the light happiness and tight writing of the others. For me, it was a DNF.