The Bookshop on the Corner

As the first novel in Colgan’s Kirrinfief series set in the Scottish Highlands, The Bookshop on the Corner establishes the world of the series and introduces recurring characters who populate the small town of Kirrinfief. Each of the three novels follows a different female protagonist who leaves her life in a large British city behind for the small, tight-knit community in Scotland. While the lead characters in the novels recur in the subsequent books in the series, each narrative can also be read as a standalone story. For example, in the second Kirrinfief novel, The Bookshop on the Shore, Zoe—a young, single mother from London—moves to Kirrinfief to find a new start working as a nanny and managing the mobile bookshop while Nina (the protagonist of The Bookshop on the Corner) is on maternity leave.

The third novel, 500 Miles From You, follows trauma nurse Lissa, who participates in a three-month exchange program with a local Scottish paramedic and army veteran named Cormac, who takes a position at her hospital in the center of London. The two characters swap jobs, houses, and patients, and begin an email correspondence that develops a growing bond between them, transforming both of their lives.