“I couldn’t explain it, not even to myself, but books gave me an unflinching sense of stability and groundedness. That because words survived, somehow I would too.”
― Evie Woods, The Lost Bookshop
Hidden stories swirl beneath the surface in Evie Woods’ debut novel, The Lost Bookshop. Opaline, Martha, and Henry have been pushed around and shunted to the sides of their own lives. Desperate to escape, they start down paths that will change their stories forever.
In the past, Opaline is facing off with her brother. His plans for her are not what she wants, so she looks for a way out that eventually leads her to a magical, mysterious bookshop. In the present, Martha is an Irish woman trying to escape her abusive marriage. Leaving her husband, she finds work as a housekeeper for a mysterious woman in an even more mysterious house that comes alive the longer Martha works there. One day, Martha sees Henry pacing outside her bedroom window. Henry is a scholar who has made his way to Dublin to find a missing manuscript and a lost bookshop that should be right next to where Martha lives. Henry and Martha work together to find the history of the bookshop and what happened to the people involved.
This was a lovely read. I adored listening to Opaline, Martha, and Henry tell their stories across time. This is a dual timeline, so readers (and listeners) need to pay attention! Evie Woods pulled together the timelines, characters, and storylines in such a way that almost everything is resolved at the end. Woven into the storylines were multiple classic books, manuscripts, and their authors. Sylvia Beach and her bookshop Shakespeare & Company played a large part, as well as famous authors who dropped in to help the characters on their self-discovery journeys. Pick up this book if you’re looking for a bit of magic, myth, historical fiction, or have a deep love of anything literature. You’ll be transported to Ireland and the mysterious worlds of Opaline, Martha, and Henry as they work to find the lost bookshop and, by extension, themselves.
“The thing about books,’ she said, ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.”
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