McCall Smith’s writing is certainly addictive. Read one and you want to read more. Love Over Scotland is no different in that with his usual skill and charm he has pulled together a handful of quirky and brilliantly observed characters into a touching storyline with such ease. Serious issues are from time to time integrated into the storyline and yet with such lightness of touch the message is almost subliminal. Reading a McCall Smith is a bit like curling up with a really good friend. Just add a cup of cocoa and your set for the evening ahead. Pure joy.
With his characteristic warmth, inventiveness and brilliant wit, Alexander McCall Smith gives us more of the gloriously entertaining comings and goings at 44 Scotland Street, the Edinburgh townhouse. Six-year-old prodigy Bertie perseveres in his heroic struggle for truth and balanced good sense against his insufferable mother and her crony, the psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn, going as far as to make a short-lived bid for freedom on a trip to Paris with the Edinburgh youth orchestra. Domenica sets off on an anthropological odyssey with pirates in the Malacca Straits, while Pat attracts several handsome admirers, including a toothsome suitor named Wolf. And Big Lou, eternal source of coffee and good advice to her friends, has love, heartbreak and erstwhile boyfriend Eddie's misdemeanours on her own mind.
