The Breakup Bookshop

by Breea Keenan

A gorgeous, bookish Scottish small-town romance for fans of Emily Henry and Catherine Walsh
________________________

Ava Campbell is in crisis. Her boyfriend has broken up with her and she's lost the city job that paid her so much she barely noticed how much she hated it.

Heartbroken and broke-broken, Ava decides to move to the Highlands and open a bookshop. There, Ava discovers she's not the only one who's hurting - and maybe the bookshop can help. The village's (maybe Scotland's?) first break-up support group turns out to be a surprise hit with the locals.

But not all her new neighbours are so enthused. Rory MacGregor, the annoyingly handsome owner of the next-door hardware store seems intent on her - and the bookshop's - downfall.

Ava has a lot to learn. How to run a small business? Does it really rain all the time? And, most of all, how can she get Rory off her case?


- Enemies to lovers
- Small town romance
- Forced proximity
- Second chance romance
- Highland romance
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Praise for Breea

'Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Catherine Walsh' Sunday Mail
'Funny, surprising and as fresh as a glass of lemonade' Jenny Colgan
'Beautiful, funny and smartly crafted' Andrés N. Ordorica

Genres: Romance, Audiobook

Paperback

About the author

Breea Keenan has been writing professionally for 18 years. She has a first-class honours degree in English Literature, Journalism and Creative Writing from Strathclyde University, and worked as a journalist for various media titles before moving into communications and marketing. Her poetry was selected for inclusion in Blether (Scottish Book Trust) and Living During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Legend Times). Breea lives near Glasgow with her husband and three children. Plot Twist is her debut novel.

Reviews

[Marjolein]

Started of fine, then turned into a dumpster fire about 60% in

[Abbey Cerone]

Me reading a romance? Unheard of. Me giving a romance 5 stars? Insanity.

Loved everything about this. It was a super cozy read. I loved the atmosphere of the town and all the characters were soooo lovely. It was impossible to hate anyone. Except Seb, fuck Seb.

[Abbie]

You know a book is good when you binge it in 1 day

[Acacia]

First 200 pages was cute & then I got bored and skimmed the last 100 pages

[charly baker]

loved the first 70%
but wow the romance happened overnight and the ending was stupid

[Sian]

A cute romance with a mix of heartache, finding oneself again and making life better. Any romance that has a book shop in it always attracts my attention. New place, new career, new friendships and hopefully a blooming new relationship. What more could one ask for?! 🥰

[Antonie]

The Breakup Bookshop was one of those books where I had quite a few things to complain about while reading it, and yet I still really enjoyed reading it. Sometimes a book simply gets away with that.

The setting certainly helped. Ullapool and the Scottish Highlands were exactly the kind of backdrop I wanted from this story, and I loved the idea of TFP returning to the place where she spent some of the happiest summers of her childhood and finally deciding to make it her home. Buying a little house with a shopfront and turning it into a bookshop called The Next Chapter is almost aggressively cosy — but I’m not going to complain about that.

I particularly liked the idea behind the bookshop itself. TFP doesn’t just create a place for people to buy books; she starts a sort of support group for people who are trying to get through breakups, grief, loneliness and all the other moments when life forces you to turn the page. The title The Breakup Bookshop therefore works on two levels: it’s the name of the group, but the whole book is really about finding the next chapter of your life.

TFP and TMP were also characters I liked. Both of them are the kind of people who instinctively put everybody else first. TMP is the person everyone in town can rely on, while TFP has spent much of her life thinking of herself as someone who should be useful rather than someone who gets to want things for herself. I liked watching both of them gradually realise that being there for everyone else doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed to build a life they actually want.

The childhood connection between them was a nice addition, although I wasn’t entirely convinced by the amount of drama that came from TMP not telling TFP that he was the boy she had known as Macky. Yes, he deliberately withheld that information. Yes, he had reasons for being annoyed that she didn’t recognise him. But the eventual fallout felt like one of those romance conflicts that could have been solved in approximately twelve minutes by two people sitting down and talking to each other.

I also wasn’t particularly fond of the way the book handled the city-versus-small-town contrast. The London characters are rather conveniently presented as unreliable, selfish, career-obsessed people who can’t be trusted, while the people of Ullapool are overwhelmingly warm, generous and dependable. I don’t mind a small-town romance celebrating community — that’s practically part of the genre’s contract — but the book occasionally pushed the contrast so far that it became a little too simplistic.

The beginning also had one character trait that nearly drove me mad: TFP seemed incapable of entering a room without knocking something over, bumping into someone or otherwise creating a small-scale disaster. Thankfully, she eventually stopped behaving as though gravity had a personal vendetta against her.

And yet, despite all of that, I really liked the book. I liked the Scottish setting, the bookshop, the community around it and, most importantly, the idea at the heart of the story: that sometimes the people who are always taking care of everybody else have to learn that they are allowed to choose something for themselves, too.

So no, this wasn’t a flawless romance for me. There were some contrived conflicts, some rather broad small-town-versus-city stereotypes and a few moments when I wanted to tell both protagonists to simply talk to each other. But I enjoyed being in Ullapool, I liked spending time with TFP and TMP, and I was happy enough to turn the pages. 3.5 Stars.

[Brad S]

My wife bought this at the actual bookshop in Ullapool when we were there on holiday and so we read it together. Unfortunately we learned whilst in Ullapool that the actual bookshop attempted to engage with the author and even have her do a book talk there and she allegedly declined to have anything to do with them. If it is true this is very sad given that her whole book is about a bookshop in Ullapool and one of the subplots involves how utterly important it was to the financial success of her imaginary bookshop to have authors come in and promote books there. How sad that the author did not do this in real life so for this reason I gave it only 2 stars, if I did not know about this backstory I would rate it a 3. If I subsequently find out the author does something positive with the real book shop then I will revise my review and rating.
If the author sees this then I welcome her to refute or explain what happened with the actual bookshop in Ullapool that still stocks and displays her book despite the apparent snub.

Separately, I correctly guessed the main plot twist in first 100 pages long before it was actually revealed.

[Alex-Louise]

Thank you Netgalley and Breea Kenan for the ARC

This story is truly a beautiful and uplifting journey of a women named Ava, after a breakup and loosing her job she returns to a place she loved visiting as a child in the summer holidays.
This is an inspirational story to follow as it truly shows no matter how bad life can get, good things can still happen, and sometimes those good things are WAY better than previous experiences.

Not only is this an uplifting story its a beautiful small town/found family vibes that I absolutely am a sucker for. A beautiful setting that is written so well that you truly can image it right in front of you. A renovation built into a cosy bookstore with the BEST idea of getting the community together and a romance built from childhood friends to strangers to enemies to lovers, its definitely a roller coaster for both Ava and Rory.

If small town, cosy bookshop, found family vibes are your thing this book is definitely one for you!

[Curly Mrs F]

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Breakup Bookshop was such a gentle, cosy read. I absolutely love a bookshop setting, so I was already sold, but add in self-discovery, found family and a sweet romance and I was hooked.

I really enjoyed the slower pace of this one—it gave the characters and their relationships room to develop naturally, and there was something so comforting about spending time in the bookshop and getting to know everyone. The found-family aspect was definitely a highlight for me, and I loved watching the characters grow and figure themselves out along the way.

A warm, feel-good read with plenty of heart. If you love books about books, cosy bookshops, romance and finding your people, this one is definitely worth picking up! 📚💕

[Tracey Butler]

This was adorable. I’m not usually into contemporary romance but this was very sweet. I don’t know why but I love reading about bookstores and libraries. There’s just something so peaceful about them. Like I’m in said library or bookstore. The characters are very well written. I enjoyed the content and the characters were interesting. I’m very glad the way everything wrapped up. The audio I listened to was done very well. The voice accents were very well done. The way they were done really brought the book to life for me. I would recommend listening to it.
I might look into more books by this author. I really enjoyed the writing style.

[Abookgirlie]

I don’t think I’ve ever rated a contemporary romance book 5 stars but this was so special!!

This had everything. Had me laughing, had me sobbing and it was written so well. I was fully invested in the story, loved the whole community coming together feeling and loved going on Ava’s journey to opening up her own bookshop in her special place.

This book had so much love in so many different ways. Definitely left me feeling all warm and fuzzy.

I now need to find books similar to this one to continue my relit flame for contemporary romance books!!

[Evita Ločmele]

2.75 ⭐️
Bought this book while in Edinburgh on a vacation, so thought this was the perfect cozy romance book to read in 1 day and kick my feet in the air being captivated by the characters and the scenic Scottish views.
Sadly the plot was very predictable. The FMC lacked depth, which was surprising because a lot of the book explored themes of grief and loss, but it just made her feel shallow and a bit of superficial…

[primi]

After a breakup and redundancy, Ava Campbell moves to Ullapool, a little town on the Scottish coast, full of happy childhood memories, to set up a bookshop. I loved the cast of quirky village characters and I could really picture myself in Ava's pretty bookshop with its mural painted by the hunky guy next door - and the little suprise about who he turned out to be.
I received an ARC from the publishers.

[Nicola Knight]

This novel has it all, gorgeous bookshop, dreamy location, handsome grumpy-yet-secretly-soft-hearted Scotsman and lovable female lead who I was rooting for from the very first page. A deliciously warm hug of a book!

I received a proof from the publisher

[Anne Nash]

I think j was reading a different book to some of these reviews! I thought Ava was a miserable character , very spiky and deliberately horrible to Rory. It was SO predictable from the first page. Awful book.

[Alan Cobb]

Good heart warming novel

An excellent feel good romantic tale, all the usual shenanigans, the ups and downs and the happy ending, storyline excellent ,characters excellent all in all a good worth the read novel I enjoyed it So should you

[Kristina Thornton]

Some real laugh-out-loud moments. A romance with heart and a brilliant ending.

I received a proof from the publisher.

[Poppy Alexander]

I adored this latest book about books (nope, I will never get enough!) excellent snarky banter, gorgeous setting. a huge recommendation from me

[tahliareadstoomuch]

4.1 ⭐️

I want to love to Scotland and open a cute bookstore and fall in love.

(I’m currently at one of three of the above).

⛰️⛰️⛰️⛰️⛰️

[Laura Crowell]

Unfortunately this is my dream life minus the getting cheated on part

[☆Laura☆]

Tenía mucho potencial, pero se desaprovechó y al final todo fue tratado de forma demasiado superficial. Me hubiera gustado mucho tener el libro de Donna y Finlay

[Hannah Connors]

Loved this book, it was consuming in the best way. Any book that you feel the need to consume in one sitting is definately a winner.

[Demi Lambert]

3.5

[Monika Majcher]

2.75/5

[bookmaggot]

does ullapool no have a library?

[Lorraine Joad]

A fabulous read set in Scotland with a cast of intriguing characters. I loved every page.

[Sarah Lynch]

3.5⭐️

[Katykat_reads]

3.5 ⭐️
A feel good book, with a predictable HEA. I felt there was some unnecessary miscommunication, which frustrated me and ruined some of the feel good factor of the book. The story pacing was also a bit slow, as it dragged a bit towards the end.

[PJ Dop]

Thank you for a light-hearted read. I was imagining the MMC in his kiln and scotish accent throughout the entire book. Needless to say, I kinda finish the book in one night.