500 Miles From You, Jenny Colgan
This is not so much a review as a health warning. ‘Joyful’, ‘life affirming’, That’s what they say about this book and what you expect from Jenny Colgan. I picked it for a light read on a weekend when it would be too hot to do anything but read. Imagine my shock on finding the first few chapters full of horror (for me). I’d just read a book containing a particularly macabre murder but I knew what I was getting and expected it. Reading Jenny Colgan, I expect fun.
It's not at all a bad book and there’s plenty in it to enjoy. Lissa is a community nurse in a grim part of London, so she’s used to unpleasantness. One day she witnesses something particularly horrible which she can’t treat with her usual professionalism and nearly has a complete breakdown. She’s convinced she will lose her job but instead is offered an exchange, a three-month stint in a small Scottish village. Meanwhile, in Scotland, Callum, a male community nurse, is offered a three-month placement in ‘that London’. Both are horrified and the difficult adjustments for each are amusingly described. I won’t elaborate but you can see where this is going from the start. It’s a happy ending but not before a lot more troubles and misunderstandings have been sorted out. As I said, good but not what I expected and to be avoided by people who don’t like to read about anything gruesomely medical.