Descirption: A wonderful new stand-alone novel from the internationally beloved and bestselling Alexander McCall Smith: a story that explores the nature of love--and trains--through a series of intertwined romantic tales.
The rocking of the train car, the sound of its wheels on the rails...there's something special about this form of travel that makes for easy conversation. Which is just what happens to the 4 strangers who meet in Trains and Lovers. As they travel by rail from Edinburgh to London, they entertain one another with tales of how trains have changed their lives. A young, keen-eyed Scotsman recounts how he turned a friendship with a young woman co-worker into a romance by spotting an anachronistic train in an 18th-century painting. An Australian woman shares how her parents fell in love and spent their life together running a railroad siding in the remote Australian Outback. A middle-aged American arts patron sees 2 young men saying goodbye in the station and recalls his youthful crush on another man. And a young Englishman describes how exiting his train at the wrong station allowed him to meet an intriguing woman whom he impulsively invited to dinner--and into his life. Here is Alexander McCall Smith at his most enchanting.
From the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
The latest from McCall Smith, Scotland's contemporary answer to Anthony Trollope, is a stand-alone novel, set on the train from Edinburgh to London. Unfortunately, the novel is a rare misfire for McCall Smith, the architect of the "everyone brings problems to one place" frame used to such wonderful effect in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and in the elegantly interlocking stories in the 44 Scotland Street and Corduroy Mansions series. The frame here has four people in one train compartment: three men (from Scotland, the U.S., and England) and one woman (from Western Australia) settle in to tell each other tales of their past loves. It would take a derrick to suspend this I beam of disbelief, beginning with the startling fact that these twenty-first-century travelers occupy the entire journey by taking turns talking-there's not an iPad in sight. Those who expect the sort of assignations promised by the cover art will be disappointed; there's not even any flirting. Still, if readers can ignore the screeching narrative wheels, there are the usual rewards to reading McCall Smith, including his deft descriptions of landscape and the physical characteristics of his characters-and, of course, his wise and witty reflections on love and luck. --Connie Fletcher

Review
"Their stories envelop us, each in its own way-we can smell the dust of the Outback and hear the gentle lap of waves against a rowboat-and they resist reducing emotion to platitudes. Love doesn't always end happily, but even then it can end well, with hope, dignity and humanity, and that's just what Trains and Lovers celebrates." -The Wichita Eagle
*
"A lovely, quiet vacation that requires no packing, missed connections or meeting actual strangers on trains." -Weekly Alibi (Albuquerque, NM)
"As each interwoven story gracefully unfolds, trains themselves play a part in the individual narrative arcs where the fleeting nature of love emerges as a unifying theme." -Shelf Awareness

"Wise and witty reflections on love and luck." -Booklist
*
"A warm, understated serving of comfort food." -Kirkus Revie
"The best thing McCall Smith has written so far . . . He is a virtuoso storyteller whose tales from the human heart remain very definitely on track." -The Scotsman

"McCall Smith's deceivingly simple prose style can be both disarming and deeply affecting . . . That four strangers should meet and tell such compelling stories is highly unlikely, but such is McCall Smith's ability to draw us into his kindly world, disbelief is more than willingly suspended." -Sydney Morning Herald

Praise for Alexander McCall Smith

"[McCall Smith's writing is] beautifully precise and psychologically acute." -The Independent (London)

"McCall Smith's generous writing and dry humor, his gentleness and humanity, and his ability to evoke a place and a set of characters without caricature or condescension have endeared his books to readers." -The New York Times

"McCall Smith creates unforgettable characters and stories that resonate with readers across generations." -Booklist