How to Find Love in a Book Shop by Veronica Henry

Blurb

Nightingale Books, nestled on the high street in the idyllic Cotswold town of Peasebrook, is a dream come true for booklovers.

But owner Emilia Nightingale is struggling to keep the shop open. The temptation to sell up is proving enormous - but what about the promise she made to her father? Not to mention the loyalty she owes to her customers.

Sarah Basildon, owner of stately pile Peasebrook Manor, has used the bookshop as an escape from all her problems in the past few years. But is there more to her visits than meets the eye?

Since messing up his marriage, Jackson asks Emilia for advice on books to read to the son he misses so much. But Jackson has a secret, and is not all he seems...

And there's Thomasina, painfully shy, who runs a pop-up restaurant from her tiny cottage. She has a huge crush on a man she met and then lost in the cookery section, somewhere between Auguste Escoffier and Marco Pierre White. Can she find the courage to admit her true feelings?

How to Find Love in a Bookshop is the delightful story of Emilia's fight to keep her bookshop alive, the customers whose lives she has touched - and the books they all love.

Review

There are quite a few points of view in this novel, and some excursions into the past. After being introduced to the fourth POV, I did wonder if it was going to work – but it does, and very well indeed.

A feel-good story based around a bookshop with some foodie stuff thrown in, (and who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned independent bookshop – sorry W.H. Smith, you just haven’t got the same appeal!), the setting is lovely and each character is an individual. The plot is somewhat predictable, but then if I hadn’t got the ending(s) I hoped for, I would have been one disappointed lady.

The only reason thing that detracts a little was the length of the ending - I felt it was much too drawn out. Everything was wrapped up nicely, and there was a perfect point where I felt the novel could have ended, but it went on for a couple of chapters longer, and by this point I was expecting something else to happen. So, only a small gripe, and it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment.

About the Author

Veronica Henry began her career as a secretary on 'The Archers' before turning her hand to scriptwriting. She has written for some of our best loved television dramas, including Heartbeat and Holby City. She writes escapist fiction with an edge - A Night on the Orient Express won Romantic Novel of the Year in 2014. She had also written a Quick Read, called A Sea Change, and edited a collection of short stories called The Anniversary. Her fourteenth novel is How to Find Love in a Book Shop.