Thank you to @netgalley and @8npublishing for an e-Arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I would like to take a moment to appreciate the STUNNING cover! The colors, all the books, the character illustrations, it just looks so so good! The cover is the main reason that I requested this title, but then I read the blurb and it also sounded like something that I would really enjoy.

Now that I've read it, I still think that the premise was great it just wasn't that well executed in my opinion. I couldn't connect to the characters at all, they all felt very one dimensional. I didn't feel any chemistry between the two leads either, which is what I missed the most, considering that it was a romance novel. The names of the characters were also way too generic in my opinion (but that's clearly just my problem and I'm being nit-picky). Also, it felt very insta lovey, which I'm not the biggest fan of. There were also a few 'obstacles' sprinkled in throughout the book, but none of them were actual problems in the end and everything was quickly resolved. Overall, it just felt very bland.

One thing that I will say though is that the author is really great at descriptions! The way she wrote about Frankenmuth and the weekend Paige and James spent there was so dreamy! I could picture everything that she described and I felt like I was right there on the bridge with the characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I requested this on a whim because I am trying to find out what romance books I might like, and it was actually pretty cute. In the beginning, I really did not like Paige because I couldn't relate to her desire for a traditional life (marriage and kids before 30), and I found her lack of communication with her initial boyfriend soooo ridiculous, so their conflict seemed very superficial to me.

However, I found myself enjoying reading about her life, even though it was pretty basic and uneventful. It was nice to just be someone with such a simple life for a while, lol. You can tell the author is from Michigan and really loves her home, because most of the book is Paige showing James hidden gems in Michigan and explaining Midwestern culture to him. Having never been there, it was kind of cool to read about it and see how much the author wanted to show others her home.

James was definitely too good to be true, but his patience with Paige was cute to read, and I loved that he was an artist! Some reviewers found it annoying that the author kept his Scottish accent in the text, but I didn't mind it.

This book is definitely a happy ending, feel-good type of simple romance, with very little drama and no steamy scenes- intimacy is just lightly implied, so if you don't want to read about sex then this is a great romance book for you. I wish there had been a bit more drama or passion, but overall it was a nice story and a quick read. The author mentions she wants to "bring sunshine and smiles" to her readers, and that describes the vibe of this book pretty well!

Paige is a soon to be 30 year old part-time librarian living in Michigan. The book starts off with her breaking up with her commitmentphobe boyfriend of 6 years. When a handsome stranger walks into her library she feels that spark she’s been longing for. James is only in town for 8 weeks for a summer artist residency so Paige has to decide if she’s willing to risk her heart on something that may be temporary.

If sunshine x sunshine was a trope, this book would definitely fit the bill. Paige was such a positive, kindhearted person and James was a dreamy, sweet, Scottish artist. A handsome stranger with a charming accent? Sign me up!! The relationship between these two was adorable. The plot fell a bit flat for me. There was really no build up to a climax and there is no major conflict so this ended up being a light, fluffy romance. I tend to read more angsty/emotional/spicy books but this was a nice change of pace. I loved Kayla and Eric! They were such good aid characters and such amazing friends!

If you’re looking for a light, sweet, quick summer read then I think you should definitely give this one a shot.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

Thank you to NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for this eARC!

First of all I want to thank Xpresso Book Tours for providing me an advanced copy of this book for my honest review.

This is a story about a librarian (still kind of a dream job for me), and a Scotsman (who doesn't dream of that) falling in love. I saw the cover on NetGalley and was intrigued and it was well worth the read. This is a very sweet story of two people who are learning about themselves while spending time getting to know each other.

What I loved:
- Book club, Paige is put in charge of her library's book club/discussion group and I loved seeing what she put into it and how she adapted it to bring more people in
- Michigan, my best friend is from Michigan and I've always loved spending time there. This book does a great job highlighting some of the best Michigan has to offer and reminded me it was time for a visit
- James, he is an artist from Scotland and there isn't much he wouldn't do for his family and friends (even new ones)
- Kayla/Eric, Paige's best friend and husband are the type of friends I hope everyone has. They are super supportive and even when their family situation changes they wanted to make sure Paige is still involved in their lives.

This was a fun and sweet closed door romance with great characters, an amazing backdrop and was hard to put down. Overall if you are interested in reading a book about two opposites who find a common ground and fall in love I would recommend this to you.

Thank you to NetGalley, 8N Books, and the author for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. An honest review was requested but not required.

Unfortunately had this not been an ARC I would have DNF’d it. I just don’t have enough free time to spend reading books I don’t care for. This book had really seemed like a good find: a librarian! An international love interest (and a Scot to boot)! Cute romance! Michigan! Sad to say, it just didn’t work for me. Let’s hit the four elements in a row, shall we?

>>A Librarian!<<

Paige is a flat character who comes across from page one as simultaneously judgmental and picky, and desperate. The first (overlong) chapter shares in detail the last night of Paige’s 6-year-long relationship. This relationship has zero bearing on the story other than to establish that Paige is READY TO SETTLE DOWN. Because nothing is quite so attractive to potential love interests as overpowering desperation…right? Paige is also stressing that she’ll NEVER meet anyone ever! Well, Paige, you live in a COLLEGE town, with well over 100K residents. There’s plenty of people out there. And you’re PART TIME. What are you doing in all those off-hours, reading on your couch? I just don’t understand the mentality of people that expect all good things to land on their lap.
Speaking of part-time. Paige is somehow renting an apartment and living her adult life on the aforementioned PART TIME librarian job. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!! OK. Real talk. I am a *full* time librarian. In Michigan, where this profession is paid marginally more than it is where I live, and where the cost of living is significantly lower, I could probably rent an apartment and live life just fine (although I wouldn’t be taking any expensive vacations or buying any fancy cars or anything). On a part time (read: approximately half the money, no benefits, no insurance) salary? Yeah, I don’t think so. But Paige has a decent apartment and a car and can go to Tubby’s for lunch and purchase donuts for book club and endless containers of ice cream for her pregnant friend Kayla. Maybe she has a side hustle? Back to the library thing. Paige is pretty darn judgmental for a librarian. I got the impression that she resented helping every single customer except the hot guy she had a crush on. Her library horror stories needed some work too; the very best she could do was a cat on a leash? HA, Paige, that’s some minor league stuff. I once had a customer who routinely slept off his high at his favorite public computer and one day awoke to find that his terminal had been reserved by another customer and he had to vacate his seat. He didn’t care for that and decided if HE couldn’t have it, NO ONE could, so he punched the monitor, shattered the screen, kicked the equipment onto the floor, and ran for it. Another time a customer let us know there was a, and I quote, “situation in the men’s room.” When we checked the men’s room, we discovered that someone -or several someones – had decorated every square inch of the twelve foot mirror behind the triple sinks with rancid raw bacon strips. Paige, honey, you can do better. Anywho... if you want to be a librarian, your job ultimately boils down to helping your customers. Sniffing new books and designing displays are fun job duties but helping customers is by far #1 and Paige was a real B to all her customers except for James. Big no-no.

>>The International Love Interest!<<

James A. Frasier MacKinnon is a Scottish artist in residence in Ann Arbor for 8 weeks. His hobbies are art, not wanting to work for his uncle, reading books, and being Scottish. He inexplicably knows Paige is The One from the moment she offers to check books out on her personal library card for him (eye roll. Girl. Don’t you have any branch service cards? But I digress.) James is sweet, charming, handsome, and the perfect man. He validates Paige and her sizable heap of insecurities at every step, supports Paige at every turn, never says the wrong thing, and is Practically Perfect in Every Way ™. If he wasn’t inspired by a certain character from Outlander, I’ll eat my shoes. The author chooses to write his dialogue phonetically which is a little much. (Lots of dinnae, cannae, etc.) I should note that the only other two characters who appear more than a couple times on-page, best friend Kayla and her husband Eric, are even more one-dimensional. Kayla is pregnant and…. that’s pretty much it. Pregnant and likes iced tea and sweets. OK. Eric is another Practically Perfect in Every Way™ guy and serves as the model for what Paige wants out of life. He has a job in the auto industry and presents something in Detroit and likes to grill and support his wife.

>>Cute romance!<<

Paige and James’ romance is immediate-onset and fast-moving, which would be fine if they actually had any spark… but they don’t. There’s literally nothing to them other than all their kind words and occasional hugs and kisses. (FYI, there is no steam in this book. If you like a very gentle romance than this is your book: there’s barely even a “fade to black” situation.) Unfortunately, since the two lovebirds get together relatively early on, and since their relationship is so tame, the book feels like it's over before it’s really begun. Later in the book, James begins calling Paige “dear” in a non-facetious manner, which made me cringe, because it sounds like something my elderly aunt calls my uncle. There’s no real hiccups in the love story other than a family emergency which is straightened out fairly easily.

>>Michigan!<<

I’m from Michigan. I grew up there. I moved away as an adult. I’ve been most of the places you would want to go, as a tourist, in Michigan. It’s beautiful. I do miss it, especially in fall. Unfortunately, this book culminates in a lengthy and extensive travelogue, I mean 3 day vacation, through Michigan which doesn’t really serve any purpose in the plot other than being pretty and giving our lovebirds a chance to kiss and cuddle and see cool stuff. I don’t know. I’m happy to see the Mitten portrayed positively but it was just too much.

Ultimately, I think the author has some potential but there was too much telling and not enough showing. The characterization needs a lot of work. The logistics of the characters’ backgrounds and plot pacing needed a little polishing too. I probably would have put this down if it hadn’t been an ARC. It’s so sweet it made my teeth hurt. I guess I’d recommend it to readers who don’t want any heat in their stories nor do they want any real difficulties or controversies, aka, those looking for a fully escapist, extremely gentle romance with a James Frasier lookalike. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I feel bad saying so, but there we are.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I couldn't get into this story. I thought it was going to be a cute, fun read, but it was a slog just to get through the 30% I did. One of the main issues? I hated our main character Paige. She came off as so condescending and better than others, at least in her thoughts, and it was really annoying to read. And the love interest James was boring so by the time I got to 30% I just couldn't do it anymore.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book

A super cute, must read!

I loved reading the Scotsman in the Stacks by Alana Oxford. While it took a second to get going, once it did, I couldn’t stop reading.

I love the whirl wind romance between Paige and Jamie! They prove that a sweet, healthy relationship can exist. Their personalities complimented one another and allowed for them to be the best version of themselves.

I want more of Paige and Jamie!

Special thanks to NetGalley.command 8N Publishing for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest feedback!

Thank you to 8N Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
Normally I pick any book that has to do with bookstores or libraries. This was a nice pick!
Curiously the first chapters made me remember some of Samantha Young's novels with handsome Scotsmen, so somehow that help and made me curious about this book, which I really enjoyed reading about Paige and James.
Makes me to want to make a trip to Michigan and explore. Really sweet romance, makes to want to believe this romance can really work out.
My only point would be with the end. All the suffer with this romantic book, the growth of the main character to have that end? I need an epilogue or something more.

Paige has just broken up with her commitment phobic boyfriend of 6 years. She longs to find the kind of love that her best friend has found. She is also hoping to land a promotion at the library where she works. When she least expects it, James walks into her library and changes her life. At first, she resists the attraction she feels because James is scheduled to go back to Scotland after eight weeks. She has a hard time believing she and James could really make it work.

This book is a sweet low angst romance with an instant connection between the characters. If you are someone who likes some steam to your romance reads, this will not be your book. If you are someone who loves Hallmark movies, you will love this story. I really loved Paige and James. Although their time together in the book is short, I had no problem believing their love story. While I don't normally like insta-love books this one just read differently, and it worked for me. I liked the references to the Michigan setting and thought it was fun how Paige showed James her pride in her home by taking him to places that meant a lot to her. I wish there would have been just a little more about Paige's family and maybe a scene where she introduces James to them. I also would have loved a visit to Scotland. Overall, I truly enjoyed the book and will recommend to others who would also enjoy it.

My sincere thanks to 8N Publshing and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book and give my unbiased opinion of it.

This book is definitely on the sweet and polite side of the romance genre. I didn't feel a ton of chemistry between the characters, and I didn't feel connected to either of them. It was a very clean story and I found myself not really caring what happens to them in the end. If you like romance with no spice, then this is the book for you. Unfortunately for me, I tend to like to read romance with at least a little bit of chemistry and spice, so this was not a hit for me. #ScotsmanintheStacks #NetGalley

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this. The book grabbing my attention right away and I really enjoyed the idea of the story. Towards the middle, there were times I would need to reread parts because I thought maybe I skipped a page, but really parts were just ended. Like when she insinuated staying over, I thought we were going to at least have a mention of something steamy, but it was glossed over to the next day.

I’m hoping to give this another try when it’s released. I’m also hoping it’s picked up for audio as I would love to hear the accent when listing to the book.

This was quite disappointingly dull. It was all very predictable without much plot. Sure, there was the problem that the Michigan librarian and the Scottish artist seemed to have no long-term prospects given that he will need to return back to Scotland at the end of the summer and she is tied to her job at the local library. But there was never any doubt that this would get straightened out. Everything was just too easy and rather dull. They meet and are instantly attracted to each other. She resists going further in their relationship because she is looking for a long-term relationship. So they become friends and then lovers. He’s exceptionally sweet and good-looking and has a delicious accent, but do we need to be told that over and over again?

I wanted to like this book better, but it was just too bland. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if it had taken place in Scotland instead of Michigan and we had had to see Paige’s adapting to that environment.

I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book that I received from Netgalley; however, the opinions are my own and I did not receive any compensation for my review.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC!

4.0 stars This was so cute! I absolutely loved this romcom and it was the perfect read for the summer. I thought that characters were fun, the meet cute was just *chefs kiss* and the plot steady with no lulls. Once I started this book I absolutely devoured it. This was sweet, light and just what I wanted.

This was a very cute read! I loved Paige’s character and her first thoughts when meeting James. The dynamic between the two was great, and I could easily see myself falling for him like she did. And Kayla and Paige’s relationship was ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. However, it was a bit hard to understand James’ Scottish accent.

This book started off really well. I had high hopes. But I don’t think it was quite for me, Paige as a character really didn’t speak to me. I however do look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

I was so looking forward to this one. Scottish male lead and librarian female? Sounds like a winner! It unfortunately fell flat for me. It was just really bland. While I did feel quite a bit of chemistry between James and Paige it was still lacking that little bit of spark. Paige was in her head too much. I really loved the best friend relationship. I thought that shined a little brighter than even the romantic relationship at some points. The writing was just ok as well. There just wasn't really anything that really stood out in this one and with the market flooded with sweet romance novels I think it needs to have a little something more to really help stand out.

I have entertained many fantasises about the perfect guy sweeping me off my feet in the middle of the library / bookstore, but never in any of those fantasies did he dare overhear me talking about “sex over fifty” on the phone! 😂 Unfortunately for Paige, that’s exactly how it went down in this humorous meet cute between her and the new Scotsman in town.

It was attraction at first sight for Paige and James, and much as Paige resisted while holding out for a long term commitment, that endearing smile and Scottish accent were impossible for her to resist. Sweet, charming, and chivalrous, James’ fondness for Paige won her over, their descent into romance worthy of a fairytale.

Theirs was a quick and seamless love story filled with all the good feelings and Michigan charm, to the point it often felt a lot of the potential for continued tension and conflict dissolved once their hearts won out. I personally would have liked to see a little more turbulence and challenge inflicted on these two so their eventual HEA felt more grounded, but overall it was still a cute and enjoyable read.

I did admire the time spent by Paige learning to recognise her own value and worth outside of a relationship, while James’ worked on prioritising his dream and who he wanted to be outside of his family’s expectations. Both messages which Oxford has done well to breathe into their characters, and the artistry that James created sounds beautiful. I wish I could have seen it for myself!

There was no shortage of kindness or fondness with these two, so if you’re looking for a cute and mellow Hallmark like romance about finding one’s self without all the dramatics and angst, then this may just be the read for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and 8N Publishing for the advanced copy.

A fun romance. I enjoyed reading about Paige and James. Both are very relatable characters. Their story is sweet and funny. I like the writing style and would certainly read more by this author.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. I did not finish. Typically I don’t give star ratings to books I DNF, but since it is required by netgalley, I’m rating the portion I read.

⭐️⭐💫 2.5/5

If you are looking for a charming, low-stakes love story, this is the book for you. Paige has just gotten out of a long-term relationship with a guy who won’t commit. She wants more than anything to be just like her best friend. She wants a loving husband, cute babies, the whole shebang! But in comes handsome Scotsman, James, who whisks Paige right off her feet, but he’s only in town for the summer! She couldn’t possibly get involved. Doing so would completely derail her plan. But, spoiler alert… she does.

I thought that this story was perfectly pleasant, but it felt a bit too cheesy for my liking. The story is a love letter to the state of Michigan, highlighting all the wonderful things that can be done in the summertime in my neighboring state. The characters even take a road trip to Mackinaw City, a trip I took with my now fiancé a few years back.

All in all, this wasn’t my favorite book. The characters and plot were a bit too flat and I found myself wanting more dimension and slightly higher stakes.

Scotsman in the Stacks will be published on June 14, 2022.

Thank you to 8N Publishing and NetGalley for approving me for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!