Such is my mood for cozy village novels featuring libraries and bookstores that I read this even knowing it was a romance. And I liked it. Granted, it’s set in a cozy rural village in Devon and features a librarian, so even with the romance bit it’s playing straight to my tastes — and frankly, the romance bits aren’t that much numerous than I’ve found in Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books. Instead of happening among battles and political plots, though, they emerge amid exciting village politics, like whether the red phone box should house a little library or a defibrillator machine. As the plot opens, our lead Jess Metcalfe is a librarian who has just lost her job and is planning on fleeing the house that reminds her all too much of her recently deceased grandmother, the woman who raised her. On a drive she takes a left turn and finds herself in a quaint but slightly decaying little village and is immediately distracted by a similarly quaint-but-decaying cottage within, and the grumpy guy with broad shoulders who lives next door and has an oh-so-adowable-and-precocious daughter. No points for guessing where the plot goes from there! Jess buys the cottage and discovers that she’s now responsible for the red phone box on the property, and decides to turn it into a little lending library that proves to be a newfound nucleus for the village to rally around, finding joy in arguing about books instead of slowly drowning themselves in wine. There are various little drama-strings that get all tied up at the end, so this is basically a Hallmark movie in a book — but frankly, right on the heels of a few grim SF reads, it was just what the doctor ordered.

Highlights:

“I haven’t accidentally moved into one of those Agatha Christie sets, where the body count climbs relentlessly but there’s always cucumber sandwiches for tea?”

“I appreciate there’s a lot of ‘accidentally getting pregnant,’ and I just want to reassure you we’ve worked out what causes it now, what with Rak being a doctor and all.”

Coming up: The Royal Society, air conditioners, this and that…