Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Spice: 🌶️🌶️

by Alexandra Kiley

What starts as a fun travel-mishap rom-com slowly evolves into a deeply heartfelt story of the search for family and connection in this beautiful story that is, at its core, a love letter to Scotland.

Addie Macrae has the perfect job – as a travel consultant, she gets to see the world, have big adventures, and help businesses…but she never has to unpack the emotional baggage that keeps her from putting down roots. Assigned to help a family-owned tour company in Edinburgh, she knows this job will be different. Armed with a handful of photos of her late mother from her parent’s honeymoon decades ago, she craves connecting with a place her mother loved. Her clients, the Sutherland family, are at a business crossroads as the patriarch is retiring, and his son Logan Sutherland is poised to take the reigns in the future. At odds from the start, Addie’s goal of increasing the bottom line contradicts Logan’s desire to share the hidden gems of Scotland. From office hijinks to conference room battles, their conflict is preventing progress. Then Addie relents and agrees to go on one of Logan’s tours. As he shares his love of Scotland, Addie can’t help but fall in love with the country and the man. But can globetrotting Boston-based Addie and tied-to-Scotland Logan be anything more than temporary?

I loved how this book evolved from something light to a profound book about connection, home, and family. Addie and Logan are both multifaceted characters surrounded by secondary characters you care for and want to learn more about (I’m hoping this is the first in a series). What shines brightest is the writing in the second half of the book. As Addie and Logan travel Scotland, Kiley beautifully describes the scenery and growing connection between the characters in a way that had me highlighting whole paragraphs.