This book is set in Carso, the location of some of Jenny Colgan's previous books. It can be read as a standalone novel. If you have read the previous books, it is lovely to catch up with the previous characters.
This is an enjoyable read, with an eclectic cast of characters. I loved the setting, and the community coming together to help each other.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my arc

Really good book which I will recommend to others.

Thanks for the opportunity to read & review it.
Jenny is a fab author.

💬 My Bookish Thoughts
Jenny Colgan is one of my favourite authors, and her books are my go-to comfort reads — the ones I return to time and again.

And once again, I’ve fallen in love. How do you manage it, Jenny, every single time?

This story is full of heart — parent-child relationships, rebuilding after life’s curveballs, restoring seaside properties, and rediscovering your childhood community. Oh, and there's a fabulous bit of unexpected spice too (go, Jenny!).

As a hearing aid wearer, I really appreciated the care and research Jenny clearly put into portraying hearing impairments. I adored Janey — such a warm, caring audiologist — and the relationships between Janey, Lowell, and his daughter Verity were just gorgeous. Essie and Verity’s connection was equally heartwarming and hopeful.

Felicity and her puppies were a joyful addition, adding even more warmth and fun.

This book was exactly what I needed. It completely distracted and uplifted me during a week of uncomfortable and exhausting perimenopausal symptoms. Jenny’s trademark wit, her compelling storyline, and her cast of loveable characters immersed me in their vibrant seaside world.

Another Colgan gem earns its place in my Comfort Reads Wellbeing Toolkit, and I can absolutely see myself reading it again. If you need a book to take you away from life’s stresses and wrap you up in joy, this one’s for you!

🙏🏼 Huge thanks to @netgalley, @hodderstoughton, and @jennycolganbooks for the gifted digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

A gorgeous story about a mother a daughter finding their feet. Essie is lost when returning home after loosing her job but reluctantly gets dragged back into the local community where she starts to find her real self again. Janey is lonely and just wants a good relationship with her daughter. A long the way both women find men that challenge them to examine their hearts. There was a lot of drama in this story towards the end and it was nerve wracking to read as Essie has a small opportunity to save someone she care deeply about from ruin. Jenny Colgan has created another beautiful story with quirky but relatable and lovable characters!

You’re always guaranteed a good read with Jenny Colgan’s books and ‘Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages’ is no exception to that rule.
After coping with the trauma of her divorce and one of her adult children blaming her for it before coming back home to live with her, Janey, the main character of this book has a lot to cope with. Essie has come back home reluctantly to her small town and misses the perks of the big city, she is resentful, feels like a failure and is happy to take this frustration out on her mum.

Janey and Essie’s stories both play out in the rest of the book with potential budding relationships and the hope of their own relationship being fixed. Is being back in the small town of Carso not actually as bad as she Essie first thought?

Pick up this book for a thoughtful, fun summer read, you won’t regret it.

jenny colgan is one of my favourite authors but this wasn’t my favourite book by her.
i found it quite slow to get into and i didn’t gel with Essie where as i usually fall in love with characters.
not a bad book but just not my favourite

A heartfelt summery read, perfect for the beach or pool. Lovely setting with enjoyable characters. A hug in a book. Thank you netgalley for the advance copy

Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages by Jenny Colgan is an absolute delight. As someone who has loved her books for years, this story completely captured my heart. Colgan’s trademark warmth, humor, and charm shine through every page. The seaside setting is beautifully described and instantly comforting, and the characters are relatable and full of heart. It’s a perfect blend of romance, friendship, and personal growth. Reading it felt like coming home. Jenny Colgan never disappoints, and this book is yet another reminder of why she’s one of my all-time favorite authors. I didn’t want it to end!

Cosy, romantic, and full of seaside charm 🌊🏡. Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages is Jenny Colgan at her very best—heartfelt, uplifting, and brimming with community spirit and second chances. The picturesque setting, lovable characters, and gentle humour make this the ultimate feel-good escape. I adored the slow-burn romance, the warmth of the coastal village, and the message that it’s never too late to find where you belong. Perfect for fans of comforting, joyful fiction with a side of sea breeze.

Ah this book is like a huge and I loved it! Village life with a returning resident, it was right up my street, 5 stars all round.

This was a wonderful read, set in an idyllic setting, and features a mother/daughter relationship which is a little fractured!

Janey is divorced, with 2 grown up kids, and she's thinking about dating again but is a little reluctant! Essie is her daughter, and has always taken her Dads' side in everything, but life is forcing her back to live with her mum - who tries to be understanding but Essie moping about is driving her mad!

they soon find themselves helping out with renovations, puppy care and repairing their relationship and it really involves you as a reader as you watch them navigating all that life throws their way - having to bite their tongue when they want to let rip, and being a grown up and maybe finding romance where you least expect it! A lovely read!

"Meet Me at the Seaside Cottage" didn't convince me as much as I hoped it to. I love Jenny Colgan's book, it's not a secret, so all the more the feeling of ... disappointment? It took me long to get into this story and I was really starting to feel very, very unsecure, what's happenning that I can't connect with this book? Help! Essie was not easy to like, until the end, maybe because I know such a person myself, a person that, instead of thinking for herself, lives with her old resentments, and Essie was like this.
And then I also thought, Essie got this really, really hot scene, but Janey not? Why not? Because she's older?

Jenny Colgan writes with such warmth and understanding, with great characters and community - feeling, but this time this didn't save the story for me, didn't grab me emotionally as much as the other stories.

Meet Me At Seaside Cottages by Jenny Colgan a NetGalley review. Janey and Essie are mother and daughter, Essie is still holding grudges from her parents divorce and Janey is loving her new home now her children have flown the nest. However Essie has to return home after losing her job, back to a tiny village where everyone know everyone and secrets are never kept and where she has always felt judged. But maybe after all this time how is exactly where Essie needs to be. I’ve always enjoyed this authors books and have a few on my TBR pile, however the authors previous book was for me a bit of a flop and sadly I’ve got to say so was this one. It’s not an overly bad book, with obvious things that stand out that ruined this book for me, I simply didn’t enjoy it and the best thing I can say is that it was a nice book. I liked that the author included characters from her Scottish Islands of Mure Series, this is a stand alone book. I liked the link of the people in the community liking knitting again a nod to previous books. However there were times when I was slightly confused over what I was reading, occasionally it seemed to jump from one thing to another. About 70% through the book there is a bit of a spicy scene between Essie and another character (believe me I’m not against spicy scenes), up until this point and after it’s quite a timid shy feeling book, so it feels completely out of place, almost false, added to make the book more interesting or to somehow give it a shocking twist. I felt that it didn’t match the narrative of the rest of the book, a book that plods along, with nothing like this at all in the book. There is another part on the book where two characters are walking in the woods and pick bluebells, yet this is illegal, sorry but little things maybe but as the reader they really irked me. Sadly there characters didn’t stand out or come across particularly strong. I’ll be honest it’s a book I probably won’t remember reading, there’s simply nothing that makes this stand out from great books out there this summer. I think it’s obvious to say that I don’t enjoy this book, so I won’t be recommending it going forward, so it’s a ⭐️⭐️ from me📚📚

This was such a cute and fun read.

This book follows Janey and her daughter Essie as they try to overcome their rocky relationship and what a road it is. A young woman still bitter about a divorce and a mum taking all of said girls anger whilst still loving her fiercely.

Reading Janey and Essie’s story and seeing it move along the way it did was exactly what I hoped for. Watching their relationship mend and their bond strengthen was beautiful.

Jenny Colgan brought us a lovely warm hearted read. It was a fun, meaningful and so beautiful. I’ve read a few of Jenny’s books now and I haven’t been disappointed with her words, they always keep me hooked.

I love a Jenny Colgan book and never skip one! This is another book set in Carso (3) but this can be read as a standalone without feeling as though you are missing out!
This felt a lot more spicy than her previous books I actually gasped, although I don’t know if it’s because I was really rooting for Essie and Dwight or because it was more than usual!
I wasn’t a huge fan of Essie’s character however her redemption arc was so good and I’m so glad she ended up open minded and open to Dwight! I am dying to see what the puppy’s would have actually looked like and tbh they were the best thing about the book!
🌟🌟🌟🌟

I love Jenny Colgan and her Scottish tales. Took me a little while to get into. Essie wasn’t the easiest character to relate to. Janey on the other hand was loveable from the first page and I was willing Essie and Janey to sort their mother daughter relationship

Great little story. Another enjoyable read. Looking forward to Colgan’s next read

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this ARC.

Essie Munroe who lives in Edinburgh, suddenly gets fired from her job and moves back in with her mother Janey who is an audiologist, leaving behind boyfriend Connor. Like in Summer Skies and Close Knit, the action takes place in Carso, a small town near the sea in the north of Scotland, in the beautiful Highlands, described so vividly, that I, a content Londoner, immediately wanted to move there, for the views, the animals and the close-knit community. As love interests, we meet Dwight, an aspiring property developer, and Lowell, an architect with a deaf daughter.

This is a gentle, character-led story which bumbles along quite nicely until there is a bit of drama inserted with a Ponzi scheme, and a fax machine takes centre stage. It's a funny, uplifting easy read with plenty of cute dogs but I had a bit of a hard time warming up to Essie who often acted like a stroppy teenager. Both slow-burn romances commenced nicely though.

What I love is that Jenny Colgan never just concentrates on a couple of main characters - we meet the whole eccentric community to really round out what it's like living there. I will always read everything Jenny Colgan writes as she has an effortless writing style that gives her wonderful characters enough space to shine while still making sure there is a plot.

Janet is a nurse living a normal happy life after a traumatic divorce in a Scottish town by the sea, where we have met residents before, enjoying flying and knitting! Her daughter comes to live with her and suddenly we are thrust into situations that weren't of our making! Jenny takes us again on a wonderful rollercoaster of storytelling jumping backwards and forwards from mother to daughter as both navigate their new roles in each other's lives. Love that we are back on familiar ground of Carso and the past book characters make an appearance.

Meet Janey and Essie Carter, mother and daughter respectively. Janey loves living in the tiny town of Carso, working in the local hospital as an audiologist whereas Essie couldn't wait to get away to the hustle and bustle of Edinburgh. But then it all falls apart, Essie's employer is moving to Switzerland and there's no position for her, also she's been there less than two years so she doesn't qualify for redundancy. With no new job on the horizon, realising she has huge credit card debts, and can't afford her flat share Essie reluctantly decides to move back to Carso and her mum's tiny cottage, since her posh boyfriend Connor doesn't seem willing to let her stay with him and his colleague Tris.

Janey is thrilled to have Essie back home, even if her daughter blames her for the divorce and finds fault with everything, but soon Essie's messiness, unwillingness to do anything around the cottage, and slovenly appearance are driving her to drink.

Luckily, Janey's son Al persuades Essie to join them and Janey's colleagues down the one remaining pub for a quiz night, where Janey runs into the father of one of her former patients, and Al and Essie catch up with their old school friend Dwight (who developed a love of country and western clothing as a child and doesn't seem to have dropped it) who has been working the oil rigs. Dwight has just bought the three dilapidated cottages next to Janey's and intends to do them up and sell them, but after five minutes talking to him Essie realises he hasn't the first clue about budgeting or decorating and volunteers herself as project manager.

Meanwhile, Janey's former patient's father's dog has had puppies in one of the cottages. Lowell is totally clueless and enlists Janey's help with caring for the puppies, which she helped to birth after the first one got stuck.

This was just charming from start to finish. As a woman of Janey's age I identified more with her, especially since Essie came across as a spoilt brat at first, but it was just charming, sweet, funny, all the feels.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for a review.

A wonderful summery read with some old and new friends. Perfect poolside reading!