Who among those of us who read books like others breathe and eat – to be fair we all breathe and eat but let’s just go with this overblown comparison for the sake of the review, shall we? – hasn’t dreamed of someone (very distant with their passing causing us no grievous emotional impact) leaving us a bookshop, preferably somewhere impossibly atmospheric and romantic, in their will?
Just me, then? Surely not; all that to say, that the idea of being gifted what is many peoples’ “Happy Place” is one of those wonderful things that we wish would come true and transform our fairly ho-hum lives, one enriched by books but still, into something altogether magically different.
It may seem like one of those pipedreams that will never come to pass but for vivaciously downtrodden Rosie, it happens and right when her world in the United States is crashing down around her – bland boyfriend kicked to the curb (to the delight of her bestie), job at his family’s discount store gone with it (thank god!) and all semblance of the safe world she’s created as an antidote to the chaos of her childhood with an emotionally negligent mother blown to smithereens.
Where to next?
Why to Scotland of course and a small charming seaside village where a lovable if domineering of book club readers known as the Book Bitches, led by the indomitable and surprisingly vulnerable at times Esther, hold sway, a hunky software engineer named Alexander is licking years-old romantic wounds and a bookshop is waiting to be brough to life.
A soft thrill of anticipation worked through me [Rosie].
My departure.
I was going to do this.
It was time for me to live My Big Life.
That’s the narrative heart and soul of Highland Hearts Holiday Bookshop by Tricia O’Malley which resonates with an hilariously heartfelt zest about what is waiting for us if we’re willing to let ourselves open up to new possibilities and more than a little unpredictable chaos.
It also has a spirited magically real vibe to it, inhabited by the playful ghost of its previous owner, a great-aunt Rosie never met but wishes she had, who, along with two hundred years’ worth of bookshop owners, have brought people together in love, based on the rich commonality between their favourite books.
The one problem for Rosie, apart from a noticeable lack of business experience, is that she has sworn off love, too badly broken by a lifetime of people abandoning her, letting her down and treating her as if she’s something best left to a far further down the list priority than a soul-nourishing first.
Well, we all know that reticence to fall in love won’t last last long will it?
Not simply because Highland Hearts Holiday Bookshop sits firmly and unapologetically in the festive romcom camp, but because when Rosie meets Alexander, the aforementioned, very handsome, and super sweet software designer, who also loves birds and rescue puffins (oh the puns the book giddily embraces), sparks fly though each person does their absolute, finale-delaying level best to tell themselves nothing even slightly romantic is brewing.
(courtesy official Tricia O’Malley Facebook page)
It is, of course; they know it, deep down, the Book Bitches know it, hell, even the whole village knows it.
But novels as fun and funny to read as Highland Hearts Holiday Bookshop rest heavily on the idea that the central characters won’t admit the truth to themselves, certainly not for a good long while, and while that might seem like altogether too much delayed narrative gratification, O’Malley does a beautiful job of keeping the will-they, won’t-they fires burning without feeling like nowhere dreamily romantic is being arrived at fast.
Filled with a buoyantly uplifting, comedically rich and emotionally honest vibe that captures your reading heart just as fiercely as Rosie and Alexander capture each other’s (though, again, shhh admit to nothing), Highland Hearts Holiday Bookshop zips along at a garrulous pace, filled with memorable characters, richly-formed dialogue and a sense of lives being happily remade.
It’s a joy to read because everything feels like wonderfully and richly written.
There’s not a moment where you feel like the dialogue sounds clunky or the characters annoying or the storyline overblown and repetitive, and while Highland Hearts Holiday Bookshop makes a minor misstep possibly with the inclusion of a misunderstanding in the final act which temporarily sets our would-be lovers at odds which likely doesn’t need to be there, it’s soon forgotten by a story which delivers on every single count.
Even though you know where it’s all headed from the get-go, Highland Hearts Holiday Bookshop feels gloriously uplifting and happily original and fresh, lifted high aloft by characters, both central and supporting, who are an absolute joy to be with.
We won the next two windows.
Riding a high, the group met to discuss our final window, which wold be put up this weekend. It also landed just two days before Christmas.
There is also, rather happily for those of those of us who love festive everything all-year-round, a lot of Christmassy bliss flung like tinsel all about.
Before she’s even had a chance to catch her breath, find her feet as a Scottish bookshop owner or organise the bookshelves and sort the books, the Book Bitches have entered her, and by default the village, into a festive window-decorating competition.
The rivalry is fierce between the village and the neighbouring very real locale of St Andrews, on the upper east coast of Scotland, and it inspires the whole village, during some merrily creative and fiercely argued sessions at the pub and the bookshop, to come up with some truly imaginatively festive ideas that will hit the hearts of the judges and put the villages bookshop well and truly back on the map.
Rosie, of course, ends up with the Christmas of her dreams, with a bookshop she loves running, a man she adores and who adores her right back (kinks in the road to everlasting love true love notwithstanding) and a village where she feels she really belongs with a found family who love, support and know her in a way that she’s never experienced and which feels wonderfully transformative.
As festive romcoms go, Highland Hearts Holiday Bookshop is right up there with the best, a blissfully Christmassy burst of joy that celebrates hope, possibility and all the good things in life that we think might never be ours but which, with a little bit of openness and yes, magic, might yet grace our lives and change us forever, not just at the most wonderful time of the year but all year round.