500 Miles from You

A Novel

By: Jenny Colgan

Narrated by: Eilidh Beaton

Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author Jenny Colgan returns to the beloved Scottish Highland town of Kirrinfief, which listeners first met in The Bookshop on the Shore, and adds a dash of London’s bustling urban landscape.

Lissie is a nurse in a gritty, hectic London neighborhood. Always terribly competent and good at keeping it all together, she’s been suffering quietly with PTSD after helping to save the victim of a shocking crime. Her supervisor quietly arranges for Lissie to spend a few months doing a much less demanding job in the little town of Kirrinfeif in Scottish Highlands, hoping that the change of scenery will help her heal. Lissie will be swapping places with Cormack, an Army veteran who’s Kirrinfeif’s easygoing nurse/paramedic/all-purpose medical man. Lissie’s never experienced small-town life, and Cormack’s never spent more than a day in a big city, but it seems like a swap that would do them both some good.

In London, the gentle Cormack is a fish out of the water; in Kirrinfief, the dynamic Lissie finds it hard to adjust to the quiet. But these two strangers are now in constant contact, taking over each other’s patients, endlessly emailing about anything and everything. Lissie and Cormack discover a new depth of feeling...for their profession and for each other.

But what will happen when Lissie and Cormack finally meet?

©2020 Jenny Colgan (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

One of my favorite authors.

I love this author. I was pleasantly surprised when the storyline tied into a previous book by the same author. Great subject, I really enjoy hearing about Scotland and the loch.

Delightful.

Heartwarming and very enjoyable, just right for these bleak times. Narration is superb - I'd give it even more stars if I could.

Wonderful

Love these characters and Scotland. Warm and charming romance that is fully realistic and also hopeful.

Excellent!!!

This book was just... perfect. I keep thinking about it. The characters were so well-developed and the settings so beautifully contrasted. It was the perfect book to read when I was feeling anxious about real life. And the narration was superb!! I need to find more books by both the author and the narrator!

One ofColgan'sBest

While I find most of Colgan's heroine charming but slightly more clueless than I can believe, Lissa in this story was more believable to me because I work with women with PTS and they can be just like Lissa! I found this a sweet and fun romance, with meaningful glimpses into the life of NHS workers. Great narration!

Another enjoyable listen!

I’m really enjoying the books in this series. I appreciate that new characters and their stories are developed while previous characters are intertwined! Lovely!

Lovely

Lovely cast of characters, lovely descriptions of the experience of living in a locale, lovely ending.

Sweet

Excellent performance of a sweet, sweet story. I especially like the promotion of organ donation.

LOVE!!

Book 3: I inadvertently began this series with this book (#3) but loved it so much I had to have more of these characters, but generally would suggest reading them in order so when you encounter the other wonderful folks you'll understand their backstories and smile. (well, I did)

The mother's loss in this book hit too close to home for me - so there was a lot more crying than in the other two stories. Lissie's trauma and anxiety was (I thought) well depicted with appropriate and realistic triggers - still, she's a remarkably strong and admirable woman. Cormack is wonderfully quirky and self-aware. The depth of character development the author is able to accomplish is exceptional in such a short book.

The Series: Any story line that has me both laughing and crying, nodding in agreement and talking back to the characters or narrative is a winner! I absolutely adored the writer's style and wit and the characters' personalities were well-developed and consistent. Narration was lovely and I appreciated and enjoyed proper Scottish pronunciations and inflections. I often found myself (in all three books) staring out into space during a description of a beautiful scene of the Highlands and sighing with the beauty in my mind's eye. The author has an exceptional ability to bring the magnificence of Scotland's landscape to the listener/reader.

The story and characters were truly standouts in my opinion - and I really, really wish there were more to this series. Hear me, Jenny?? :)

Charming story with some surprise twists

Really enjoyed both the writing and the narrator on this book. Sweet, funny story that goes along more or less as expected, but there are a few funny plot twists. Really love the way characters are introduced & we are allowed time to understand more about them, rather than too much up front explaining. Well done, would recommend for a fun summer read.