To read an Alexander McCall Smith novel is to be charmed. The Perfect Passion Company creates a world where kindness prevails, manners are important, and love is all-important. One somehow knows that a gentleman is writing this story.
The Perfect Passion Company is a match-making enterprise in Edinburgh, Scotland which introduces people. It has what the dating apps do not: the human element. Ness has had success with her business until she feels ready for a break - an adult gap year in Canada - and hands over the reins to her younger cousin, Katie.
The opportunity comes as the right time for Katie. Wanting to get out of London and her lease with an unsuitable live-in boyfriend, Katie (feeling somewhat of a fraud) takes on the unconventional professional endeavor to start anew. She decides that she wants to fulfill the destiny the business's name has in store for her and to "contribute to the overall happiness of humanity".
William has a knit-wear studio located next door to The Perfect Passion Company; he and Katie become coffee buddies and fast friends. The two take on Katie's clients with finesse although Katie feels like she herself ought to be free of romantic attachments, seeing herself "like a vegetarian butcher". Also, William is engaged to a medical student in Australia.
Sympathetic and comical characters are introduced throughout the story in the form of Katie's customers. She, with the help of William, assist people in finding relationships (albeit sometimes awkwardly and with missteps) all while Katie wrestles with her own burgeoning feelings towards William who seems intent on marrying his betrothed. But as Katie's friend Laura says to her at one point, "so often it's because a romance isn't going well that people feel as if the world's not right".
Katie soon feels as if the world's not right as she sees William headed towards a train-wreck with his long-distance fiance. Peppered with emails between Ness in Canada and Katie in Scotland, Ness councils her cousin by encouraging her to always do the right thing. Katie is challenged by this in her personal life as she tries not to sabotage William's relationship for her own personal gain.
Suffused with warmth, humor and lightness, The Perfect Passion Company is to be enjoyed curled up in a comfy couch with a cup of something cozy. Alexander McCall Smith writes with a reliably sweet, yet modern touch, and I give this novel five stars out of https://youtube.com/shorts/nZF9s7qTrMs?si=Gx_bS_gmN1399-Ws
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