This is yet another wonderful tale by Jenny Colgan, starting in Edinburgh and ending up in Essie's home town (or is it a village) of Carso, in the back of beyond.

It opens as she loses her big cheese job in finance, and has to find out her next steps, which seems to be crawling back to her mother (Janey) and history she doesn't want to remember, leaving behind her city boyfriend and his rich mates. Due to her love of buildings, the twists and turns that result, starting with working on the seaside cottages, to the relationship with Dwight, and the puppies.... you are not entirely sure where this story goes. And let's be honest, you can't predict the ending!

My favourite bit of this book is the dogs unifying everyone (especially the end chapter) and bringing Essie and her mother back together, along with much more.

I love that Jenny Colgan always brings a twist in the tale of something you wouldn't think about. In this book, Janey is an audiologist and as the story develops includes her signing to Lowell's daughter. The fact that Verity is deaf and the differing responses from her parents is an interesting one to think about.

Everyone should read this book, it will make you think. But is also a funny and cosy read.

Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages is a heartwarming journey of love, self-discovery, and second chances, beautifully set in the rugged coastal town of Carso. Colgan masterfully brings this fictional seaside village to life, with its crashing waves, charming cottages and tight-knit community.

The story follows a Janey, who has clawed her life & self esteem back to where they should be after a horrible divorce, and her daughter, Essie, who has to return to the town after things don’t quite work out the way she hoped they would. Jenny Colgan expertly weaves humour, a bit of romance and emotional depth throughout their journeys. The town itself becomes a character, offering healing, hope, and unexpected connections to those who arrive seeking change.

With her trademark warmth and wit, Colgan creates a delightful cast of characters — from friendly locals to potential love interests — that make this book feel like a comforting escape. I loved it!

After a slow start, this story set on the Isle of Lewis took off. Essie, having lost her job, has to leave Edinburgh and her perfect life with her perfect boyfriend to go to live with her Mum in her tiny cottage. She is not happy and makes that clear to everyone. However, over time, the charm of the island and her neighbours, she begins to see how nice it is living in a small place, where everyone knows your business and pulls together. This isn't an easy transition, though.

I loved the characters in this story. It is a multi-generational story, which always makes a story more interesting and rounded, I think, more pleasurable to read. I loved Essie's Mum Janey, with all her doubts and worries, but she was such a nice woman. All the characters were well-written and well-rounded, and a pleasure to get to know.

This is a little raunchier than the usual Jenny Colgan book, with a sex scene that some may be surprised by, but it didn't detract from the story. I loved this story, and it makes for a really good summer read.

What a beautiful book. Jenny Colgan can literally do no wrong, she is an excellent story teller, and I don’t think she’s ever written a bad book!
I love reading about Scotland, learning more about it. Her characters are so real and relatable.
I was rooting for all the characters, apart from the ‘city boys’ of course. The happy endings are just wonderful. Get yourself out there and buy buy buy, you won’t regret it!

Jenny Colgan is one of my favourite authors. I was delighted to receive a copy of "Meet me at the Seaside Cottages' by Jenny Ccolgan. Set in the same town last 'The Summer Skies' and 'Close Knit', some of the characters in the previous books feature briefly here, but it works well as a standalone, too. The main characters are audiologist, Janey, and her grown-up daughter, Essie. Janey is happy in the small seaside town, she is loved by the community, enjoys her job in the local hospital and has created a cosy home. Her marriage was a disaster and she is unwilling to try dating. Essie has returned following redundancy - she hates the town and couldn't wait to get away to university. She blames Janey for her parent's split and subsequent divorce, and resents having to return. Hoping the return is a stop-gap, Essie helps former school mate Dwight renovate the cottages next door to her mum. Janey, meanwhile, meet the father of a former patient... a lovely holiday read, with plot developments and well-written characters raising this novel above many others in the genre.

can someone please invent the portal that allows us to move or be adopted by the community and books that our favourite authors create? please? now-ish? because once again Jenny Colgan has given me beauty in a book. there arent enough words for how every single novel of hers brings me light and life to my days. i sit until my bum is numb to be immersed in them. she is top tier,cannot believe how lucky we are to have her talent in our lives, brilliance wrapped up in an author. and this book is only getting better and better as i read on. her books stay with me. but even if i cant remember exact plots they stick with me in a sense they have changed or made better something in my life, if only for a short while but usually forever. because books truly do bring light.
this book brings us Essie and Janey. Janey is feeling a little adrift and lost. but more lost in herself. she has left her confidence somewhere in the village it seems alongside her ex husband. the hurt is still there and the feelings it brought linger still. her daughter Essie had her life and love planned. this is quickly upended when she loses her perfect job and perfect lifestyle and in doing so needs to move home to live with her mum. they both love each other but boy do they not rub along well. this isnt helped when Essie seems to revert to moody child the instant she is home.
whilst both trying to rub along not rub each other up the wrong way they find themselves getting intrigued by the refurbishing of some cottages on Janeys street. and it brings out a whole new side to her. she comes to realise this life,or the things she could cherish in it means so much more to her than she once appreciated. she becomes less the lover of shiny shiny and more wanting hard work and to love things dearly for what they are and mean to her rather than what they mean to Instagram.
the journey mother and daughter take together is also one to be marvelled. the communication and past hurts is clear for the reader to see. but watching them unpick and unpack these is just gorgeous. and what great authors like Jenny does time and time again with the perfect pitch.
the book stored itself nicely on the shelf in my heart. it took me up in some varied emotions and i could definitely relate to some of what both of our main characters were going through. and of course there are the delicious side characters which you wont be disappointed with. a particularly someone you might like more than most.
another five star and above if i could read. thankyou!

A really enjoyable read, just what you’d expect from Jenny Colgan, and she delivers fabulously in this book. Just the right mixture of family, friendship and romance. A joyous read that warms your heart.

Jenny Colgan's books are always a lovely read, though this did take me a little while to get into.

Essie has fled the small Scottish town of Carso for the bright lights of Edinburgh, with a job in finance and a rich boyfriend. When she loses her job and can't afford anywhere to live, though, she's forced back to Scotland and a fractured relationship with mum Janey.

There's romance on the horizon, of course, for both divorced audiologist Janey and directionless Essie, with some surprising love interests. And there's puppies - lots of puppies - and financial shenanigans, and a deaf little girl, and to-be-renovated cottages, and a former high school nemesis.

Excellent as always.

A great novel from one of the great storytellers. Set in. Remote Scottish village (or is it a town? )and features the lovely mature Janey, getting back on her feet after a difficult divorce, and Essie, returning home after her glittering career comes to an end following a banking collapse. The novel deals with the difficult relationship between mother and daughter and their attempts to reconcile themselves to their insecurities and what they want out of life. In addition, there’s great romance, issues related to deafness and dogs- lots of dogs. A great summer read.

I've been a fan of Jenny Colgan's book since Meet me at the cupcake café, and absolutely love all of her books that are set in Scotland. Meet me at the Seaside Cottage doesn't disappoint at all,

Whenever you read Jenny's books it is like being with a old friend on a trip around Scotland, where you met new friends along the way. Her books are a comfort after a hard day at work. You just have to read a few pages and you are transported across lochs and beinns and sgurrs,

A really amazing book from Jenny.

Reading a Jenny Colgan book is like meeting an old and delightful friend.
There will be laughter, there will be drama but its always a great experience.
This book is set in Carso near to the airport of other stories and, as usual characters from other stories dip in and out of this one.
Janey is in her 50s and she is content and settled after some rocky times in the past, Essie her daughter is absolutely not. Forced to return to the middle of nowhere after her exciting life in Edinburgh is ripped from her she is not very happily settled back with her mother. All is becoming very gloomy but a dog(s), a small child and a line dancer from an oil rig help them both to get to a better place. Just the right amount of peril and danger to make this a real page turner.
Makes great points about the impact of tourism on remote beautiful places and the perils of the internet.
A really lovely read

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder books for the arc to review!

I'm a big Jenny Colgan fan already, so was very excited to return to Carso again! This was a really lovely story.
As always, the sense of place was strong and the characters very lovable. Jenny does small town setting so well.
I did struggle a little to understand the financial plot line, and felt the Dwight storyline felt a little underdeveloped. That being said, the main relationship plot line was that of mother and daughter so that was the main focus!
All in all, I enjoyed it and would recommend - a great holiday read too!

Absolutely brilliant! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy, I will definitely be recommending it.

I love Jenny Colgan books and this did not disappoint. Cosy and comforting with a beautiful location and adorable puppies!

I enjoyed this one, but I didn’t love it as much as I usually love Jenny’s books. It was a sweet book with lots going on and lots of povs however I felt like it was missing something for me personally.

What a delightful five-star read. This is a must for anyone who wants to run away to the Scottish wilds, or even a town that’s mistaken for a village, it sounds delightful to me. This is also a must read for anyone with a less that amazing mother/daughter relationship, as I think we could all learn a thing or two from Janey and Essie, there are so many delightful aspects of this story that you wont want to miss, I especially loved how Janey’s job was a role that we don’t often hear about, and shone a light on deafness and aspects we don’t often hear about. There were a couple of great secondary storylines in this one, a couple that really added to the overall story really well, complimenting the whole story in an unexpected way. I so loved the puppies and their various names. This story was one of community and how strong we can be together, no mater what is thrown at us, it shows how strong we can be.

Another charming novel from Jenny Colgan that was devoured in two sittings. When Essie has to return to the Scottish island where she was born after leaving for the high life in Edinburgh she never expects that this will open her eyes to the shallowness of her old life and friends, and that she will appreciate the community and life she was so keen to leave behind her.
Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read and review Jenny’s latest book

I love Jenny Colgan. So many authors do feel-good novels these days, but only Jenny does them with perfectly pitched humour and just enough grit of realness. So when I managed to get my hands on her latest I was extremely excited.

Essie grew up in beautiful, windswept, very remote Carso and couldn’t wait to leave it behind when she left for university. She works in finance and loves her insta-perfect Edinburgh life with her posh boyfriend. I totally understood her fascination with him and his group of friends, and their experience of financial safety that is so alien to her. At the start of the book she loses her job when the firm relocates to Bern, and has to move home temporarily. Where she instantly reverts to the moody teenager she was when she left.

Janey is Essie’s Mum, a popular audiologist in the village, who finally feels safe in her tiny, cosy cottage after the stressful and tumultuous end of her marriage and divorce (which Essie has never quite forgiven her for). She loves Essie desperately but they can never make themselves understood to each other.

While trying to find a new job Essie ends up getting involved in the refurbishment of the dilapidated cottages on Janey’s street. As well as the developments in their lives and the appearance of puppies and love interests alike, the book touches on how investors, holiday homes and AirBnbs have contributed to a housing crisis and shortage of affordable homes for locals - a hot topic in Scotland today.

At the start of the book Essie’s posh boyfriend jokes about her going home being like a cheesy Christmas movie where the city girl rediscovers the meaning of life, starts wearing flannel, and falls in love with the hot woodsman. And yes through the book Essie does come to understand the joys of living at a slower pace, being less interested in shiny material things, and doing what some would call ‘honest work’. But while the happy ending for mother and daughter is never really in doubt, the best thing about the book is the journey to get there.

Despite many of the settings and issues here being close to my heart (and life) this didn’t grab me emotionally as some of her other books do. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t want to be a sobbing wreck after each book I read, but I’ve knocked a star off for it.

Also, a note that a couple of scenes in here are much spicier than I’m used to from Colgan! Maybe a nod to the cosy, spicy novels everywhere these days.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review

I was so excited to receive this advance copy of Jenny Colgan’s latest book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.
This story is set in the very north of Scotland in Carso, the setting for Jenny’s last book about the knitting ladies in the town. Some of the characters from that book appear in this one but only in minor roles. It does make you feel at home knowing a bit about the town and its characters but it’s not essential as the story is a stand-alone one.
As usual with Jenny Colgan books there are some well written characters who you really get to know and like, despite their idiosyncrasies. In this one there is also an unexpected litter of six puppies and they too all have special, individual and lovable characters.
I recommend that you read this book as soon as you can get your hands on it!

This is a very warm and uplifting read and for me one of the best Jenny Colgan has written recently. With two fabulous main characters in mum Janey who has done a good job of rebuilding her life after divorce and her daughter Essie who has had a strained relationship with her mum since the divorce. Essie is forced to move back home after losing her job and home and the difficulties of a boomerang child are very well explored in this especially as Essie’s relationship with her mum is not great. Janey has some fab work colleagues which add a lot of character to this as well as some of the locals in her hometown too, not to mention the unexpected arrival of unlikely puppies. I loved reading both Janey and Essie’s perspectives in this and despite their difficulties the overall feel of this book is really positive despite the setbacks they suffer along the way.