REVIEW: Welcome to the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan is the first book in a series that she is releasing under her own name. She originally wrote it under the pen name Jane Beaton. They weren’t big sellers but, eventually people found their way to them. In the preface she tells us it is to be a six book series and in the blurb it says it is a four part series. Your guess is as good as mine at this point.  We’ll wait and see. 

I have read several of Jenny Colgan’s books and have enjoyed them. This one was good but, not at the top of my list. She has peaked my interest enough that I will have my eye out for book two. It wasn’t awful but, it felt a little slow to me. It takes place at a boarding school. The story is about a girl’s school and over the hill is the boy’s school. The boys and girls have a few activities together during the year but, mostly they are apart. 

With the first book we are getting to meet the various characters and how they wound up at this school as either teachers or students. The English teacher is Maggie Adair and she has a boyfriend named Stan. They have had a long term relationship and a good bit of this book is about Maggie and six or eight of her students. She grew up in a more metro area and was hoping that teaching at this school would give her more skills to take home to her old neighborhood. She finds herself falling in love with the school and not wanting to leave.

The name of the School is Downey Hall and it is an old castle in Cornwall, Scotland. I can’t imagine leaving a place like Downey Hall that sits right on the water. Wouldn’t that be a dream come true? This is again another book I’ve picked up that takes place in Scotland. I found out in the last year that I am mostly Scottish. I wonder if these books are telling me I need to go for a visit? Anyway, I’m having a blast learning little tidbits about the homeland of my ancestors.

If you love books that are set at boarding schools and in a foreign country, you’ll most likely enjoy this book. You can pre-order it now and it will be in your in box on release day. Happy reading!

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SYNOPSIS: The first book of Jenny Colgan’s delightful new four-part series, set at a charming English boarding school on the sea.

Maggie went to the window and opened it wide, inhaling the lovely salt air off the sea. Why had she never lived by the sea before? Why had she always looked out on housing estates and not the little white hulls of trawlers bobbing off in the distance?

It’s gloriously sunny in Cornwall as the school year starts at the little boarding school by the sea. Maggie, the newest teacher at Downey House, is determined to make her mark. She’s delighted by her new teaching job, but will it come at the expense of her relationship with her safe, dependable boyfriend Stan?

Simone is excited and nervous: she’s won a scholarship to the prestigious boarding school and wants to make her parents proud. Forced to share a room with the glossy, posh girls of Downey House, she needs to find a friend, fast.

Fliss is furious. She’s never wanted to go to boarding school and hates being sent away from her home. As Simone tries desperately to fit in, Fliss tries desperately to get out.

Over the course of one year, friendships will bloom and lives will be changed forever. Life at the Little School by the Sea is never dull…