Found in a Bookshop, Stephanie Butland

This is a well crafted and beautifully written book about exactly that, books. In this case books in the context of a bookshop and how that bookshop is the centre of a gravitational pull that keeps the characters together.

The bookshop owner, Loveday is an immensely solid, giving character that is a little defined by her past life trauma but the wonderful thing about her is she continues to enjoy her life despite her experiences. By the end of the book I had feelings of immense respect and admiration for her as well as wishing I could be friends with her. Her partner Nathan and his sister Vanessa I find a bit 2 dimensional but since I finished this story I read the prequel and in the first book ‘Lost for Words’ Nathan’s character and to some extent Vanessa’s are dealt with in more detail, perhaps if I had read them in the order they were written I would have had the benefit of this. However, I feel that I connected with Loveday in book 2 and wouldn’t have felt as much empathy for her character in book 1 if I had read them in the correct order.

I enjoy the multiple threads that are pulled together by the central constant, the bookshop. The first thread is Loveday’s, then next is her bookshop manager Kelly who is kind and funny and ordinary. Kelly is blindsided by COVID breaking and comes up with an idea to save the bookshop from collapsing during this time of lockdown whilst unknown to her, her life is collapsing around her.

Next is Maddison, a school child who comes to work at the bookshop and her story becomes intertwined with the others by a subplot that only she knows about.

In amongst all of this are the stories of the people who use the bookshop, why they need the books and the brief acts of the play of their lives that are opened to us. It would be very hard not to take these characters to your heart and join them in the rollercoaster of emotion that floods their COVID experiences.

The Author cleverly gets in multiple book recommendations as part of the storyline so as the reader you end up with plenty of suggestions of where to head next depending on what genre you feel like reading, perfect!