Jenny Colgan’s The Christmas Bookshop is the story of Carmen who moves to Edinburgh to work and live with her sister’s family. While there, Carmen works in a bookshop that is in great need of help. From the bookshop to the characters, The Christmas Bookshop shows that first appearances aren’t always correct. A lovely and well-written story that shows the magic of the Christmas season.

2.5⭐️

It was hard for me to get into. I didn’t connect with any of the characters very well but enjoyed the beautiful setting! I could picture myself in this town during the holidays.

Overall, it wasn’t really for me.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced digital copy.

4 stars- feel good, hallmark Christmas movie in book form! I loved Carmen and that while, yes there was romance, the sisters relationship and carmens relationship with her nieces and nephews was also at the forefront of the story. The snowy night scene with the kids was just gorgeous!

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle by William Morrow and Custom House and #NetGalley for my honest opinion.

The third in a series, it was just like the others. Enjoyable, lovely and an entertaining holiday read.

Jenny Colgan has combined my two favorite things into one very enjoyable read! Holiday season and bookshops! Two sisters, Carmen and Sofia work out bumps in their relationship in a setting as charming as one found in the Christmas movie, The Holiday. Of course my favorite “character” is the bookshop itself.
Highly recommend adding this to your list of books to give and even better? Combine this book with a gift card to the recepient’s favorite bookshop!
Merry Christmas!

Jenny Colgan + Bookshop + Christmas = Delightful

Reader fans of Jenny Colgan will not be disappointed with this latest installment, surrounding the Christmas season. Highly recommend this read and still keep looking forward to her next.

When I discovered that Jenny Colgan added another bookshop book to the series, I could not wait to read it. I loved the first two installments, and this one did not disappoint. This is the story of Carmen who has spent most of her life in the shadow of her very successful older sister, Sofia. The department store where Carmen has worked most of her adult life has recently closed, she is back at home with her parents and has no job. Enter Sofia who is a very successful lawyer in Edinburgh with a client that is about to lose his family inheritance unless he has a successful season at his book shop. So Carmen is off to Edinburgh to stay with her very pregnant sister, two nieces, one nephew and a very snarky nanny in order to help young Mr. McCredie save the family fortune. She arrives to find that she will be staying in the basement with the nanny, her sister is far more successful (and pregnant) than she anticipated, her nieces’ relationship is almost identical to the one she has with her sister, Mr. McCredie is not young at all and his shop is a mess. Despite all of this, Carmen is charmed by Edinburgh, Sophia’s beautiful house snd even the children. Per usual, there are visits from characters of past books (perfectly placed). I read this book in two days, and was charmed by the setting and the characters. If you are a fan of Jenny Colgan’s books, you will not be disappointed, if you have not yet read them, what are you waiting for???

This book was ok. A little different but it was interesting for the most part. It was set in a beautiful city.

Thank you, NetGalley and William Morrow, for the ARC of this endearing novel! Jenny Colgan delivers a heartwarming tale that would make for the most perfect Hallmark Christmas movie. Set in picturesque Edinburgh, our fierce protagonist Carmen is down on her luck. She’s lost her job, her flat,, and her hope. With the love of her family and the support of the cast of the most lovable, quirky characters, we see Carmen transform her life. The bookshop in the novel is enchanting, as is the snow, the children, and Mr. McCredie. It’s so easy to fall in love with The Christmas Bookshop. My only question is - when will the sequel be released?

Two sisters couldn’t be more different. Sophie, an accomplished wife, mother, and career woman and Carmen who just lost her low paying job. Carmen is sent to Sophie’s to,help,out a client in his bookshop. It was fun to read the developing relationship between the sisters and for them each to realize value and worth in the other. The children added comic relief. The bookshop is inviting and books during the holiday season are especially magical. Visit Edinburgh in Colgan’s latest and see what happens to the sisters.

This book was adorable! Loved the depth that the characters have. This bookshop sounds like a place I’d love to visit. It was fun, cozy, and a little magical.

I did struggle with the romance a little. I wish more had happened sooner rather than waiting until the end.

This was delightful. I read all of Jenny Colgan's books and some are hit and miss. This is definitely a hit. I love how she weaves characters from past novels in to make appearances in later installments. However, this works just fine as a stand alone novel. The characters are lovely and very real. The situations they find themselves in are not overly dramatic. The romance is sweet, but deeply felt and not superficial. Add Christmas to the mix and library patrons are going to adore this book.

Four and a half Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭒

The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan is everything you want in a Christmas book and more! It’s a charming and heartwarming story of love, family, relationships, and redemption. I knew a holiday story set in a historic bookshop would be good, and I was not disappointed.

Carmen is forced to move in with her perfect sister Sofia, and her perfect family after she lost her job in a department store’s haberdashery department. With no job prospects in her dying town, she grudgingly moves to Edinburg to live with her sister and her perfect family. Sofia, an attorney, finds Carmen a job in her clients, a dilapidated and unprofitable bookstore owned and managed by Mr. McCredie in the old historical shopping district in downtown Edinburgh.

Carmen quickly realizes that Mr. McCredie is not a good businessman, and enjoys reading much more than running his bookshop. She uses her retail experience to instill some much-needed warmth, and Christmas spirit into the bookshop as she grows to love the store and old Mr. McCredie. She meets an exciting, famous, and rich self-help author who befriends her, even if he is a bit self-involved. And she finds the quiet, but lovely, university lecturer, Oke, a friendly face with a genuine personality, a warm and pleasant friend.

A Christmas Bookshop has a lot of heart and is the perfect holiday book. These characters are so well developed with flaws and traits that make them real to the reader. The author’s descriptions of Edinburgh and the historic district in winter are so realistic I felt like I was walking to the old historic bookshop along with Carmen. The story flowed so well that I never felt it drag or move too fast. I enjoyed the relationship Carmen developed with Mr. McCredie, Sofie, and especially Sofie’s three (soon to be four) children. And I loved the way Carmen and Sofie worked through their old grievances and learned to love each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

I highly recommend The Christmas Bookshop to anyone who loves a deep and emotional holiday story. I received a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Carmen is forced to move in with her sister and kids. A rough relationship makes for a tense start but as she works to help a local bookstore turn things around by Christmas, she begins to get yo know them. There is also some romance and a mystery tossed in. Overall an enjoyable story.

I received an advance copy of, The Christmas Bookshop, by Jenny Colgan. I thought this book was just ok. I really did not like the character of Carmen. Sophie was only a little better .

I have read many books by Jenny Colgan, of her I believe it is 42 books I have read 19 including this one. This was the first book of Colgan’s where I didn’t fall immediately in love with the characters. They were ones I had to warm up to, but once I did so they were, as always, lovely. Colgan is great at writing flawed and stronger than they believe themselves to be characters, but in The Christmas Bookshop, the characters are very distinct. Our main two characters, a pair of sisters who do not have the highest opinions of each other, are both stubborn with a lack of soft edges. Jumping between the third person POV of them both, it was hard to build camaraderie for one or both. As the story deepens and we get to see their complexity and can see the traits that the sisters don’t see in each other. Aside from the sisters, we get some lovely side characters and three of them happen to be the best kids around. Not in attitude, but definitely in serving up great dialogue and ideas. Which brings us to plot.

It’s Jenny Colgan, so of course there is romance, but The Christmas Bookshop is mostly a family Christmas story and one that leaves you excited for the coming Christmas season and makes you a little less annoyed at the impending family obligations. Growing up with 4 siblings, Colgan’s novel hit home and resonated with me on how siblings can grow to take each other for granted and/or misunderstand one another and how that can affect the relationship. It was nice to see a story that feels Christmassy, romancey, but still gives you those familial themes that can feel quite fake during the seasonal cheer. Colgan brings reel and raw family dynamics wrapped up in her distinct writing style I adore.

Comparing this to her other novels, it reads similarity to The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris, not in themes, but in the way she wrote it and the complexity of the characters. If you enjoyed that novel of hers, you would especially enjoy this one. If you have never picked up a Jenny Colgan novel and are looking to and want a Christmas story, I would recommend picking up Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Shop of Dreams (sometimes just titled Sweet Shop of Dreams) and reading that followed by Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweet Shop. If you never picked up a Jenny Colgan novel but want to and you don’t care about the Christmas aspect, I would encourage to pick up her novel The Bookshop on the Corner or The Little Beach Street Bakery (if you are looking for a series).
*I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. *

I feel like Jenny Colgan does such a good job of writing a book for book lovers. The Bookshop on the Corner is one of my all time favorites so I was so happy to get to read this! I loved it and it made me so happy!

When Carmen finds herself unemployed, living with her parents, and no job prospects, she is forced to move to the big city and live with her super-successful lawyer sister, Sophia, and her perfect children and new-agey, self-centered nanny. In Edinburgh, Carmen goes to work for Sophia’s client, a sad old man with a bookshop that must not fail. In spite of the chip on her shoulder toward the posh town, its wealthy residents, the students who attend university, and just about everyone else, she begins to mature and become a part of the charming community. She develops a greater appreciation for her sister, bonds with the kids, spars with the nanny, and reacts to the romantic interest from two men.

Carmen is funny, blunt, smart, and hard-working. She's an admirable main character. This is a coming-of-age story. The setting of Edinburgh is magical, described with all the richness you’d expect from a Colgan novel. There’s a good subplot with the bookstore owner’s family origins. The romantic lead is an unusual but rich choice. The only negative is that Colgan head-hops between characters more than ever, which can be a tiny bit confusing, although it doesn’t detract from the story. Thanks to Netgalley for this advance read!

Jenny Colgan's new novel has all the heart and humor that are her signature qualities. I love the character of Carmen and her growth over the course of the narrative as she learns to value herself and accept those who are so different from her, notably her own sister. Carmen and Sophie's relationship, and Carmen's relationship with Sophie's children (especially Phoebe, who resembles Carmen herself so much) form an integral part of the story. Carmen's love interest, Oke, is also a unique character. I very much enjoyed the development of their romance. Mr. McCredie, the bookshop owner, is a great secondary character, and the odd friendship that develops between him and Carmen is delightful. The writing flows beautifully, as always, and I loved the ending of the story. I think this might become one of my favorite Jenny Colgan novels!

Readers will quickly choose sides between the two sisters. I found Sofia too perfect to relate with and wondered if she was so smart, why put up with.Skylar. Carmen truly was a quirky person that just couldn't quite get a grip on her own situation. Sofia vs Carmen made for a delightful tale. I loved that Carmen became invested in the bookshop. I loved the setting of Edinburg at Christmas time. I thought Oke and the Quaker faith was weird and wondered why his faith was even brought into the story. Blair was a creep and easy to despise. This was the first book I've read by this author and I found it enjoyable.