Review of 'The Lost Bookshop' by Evie Woods

Review of 'The Lost Bookshop' by Evie Woods

Release Date: June 22, 2023

Publisher: One More Chapter, HarperCollins UK

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REVIEW

‘In a place called lost, strange things are found.’

Story Books. Emily Bronte. Irish Magic! All topics I dearly love. Along with bookshops— mysterious and everlasting. This story shines with originality and creative vision. The author has an amazing imagination and has delivered one of the most unique novels I have ever read.

Opaline, Martha and Henry are intriguing characters and they each share in the storytelling.  With three viewpoints, including one from the past, we are immersed in a world of wonder and magnificent prose. I enjoyed following their journeys, some of which are quite heart-breaking and others inspiring and thought-provoking, too. This novel covers so many topics I could not possibly mention them all as I would end up writing a book discussing them. I will say, this is a novel to be lovingly read by book lovers and literature seekers. It cannot be pigeonholed into one genre for it embraces many: mystery, crime, romance, fantasy, fairy-tale, women’s fiction, historical fiction with its dual timelines. In some ways it is like reading a number of books at once! But the past and present stories come together in poetic justice for a satisfying end. And the three perspectives fold into one triumphant song. And all the topics weave together into a fascinating tapestry (with the inclusion of the Book of Kells!). One mystery gives way to another, and the flow of eternal memories keep on in an endless story. There’s lots of symbolism drawn from a vast reservoir of literature in this novel and it will take you into rooms and tunnels you might not have imagined.

‘The thing about books,’ she said, ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever imagine.’ They definitely do and this book shows you the larger than life side of reading. We get to indulge, imagine and transcend the ordinary while passing into extraordinary realms for ‘books are like portals.’

This is a story about lost things waiting to be found. People trying to find themselves, too, and each other. Relationships that phase in and out. Some remain, some disappear.  Organic learning at its best.

Being set mostly in Ireland, the Book of Kells is explored to my delight. Other topics less attractive are marital abuse, women being property of men and how they could just put a woman away for no legitimate reason. Women lacked freedom in business, too. Opaline was a rare book dealer but there were men who did not take her seriously or tried to undercut her. But she is wise, driven and daring. I admired her strength, intelligence and problem-solving skills.

Martha is special, too. In a different way. She has a gift of reading people’s emotions, finding out their secrets. But nobody liked her trespassing their private moments. So she ‘learned to hide these thoughts’ and ‘hid them so well’ she forgot where she put them. She is in an abusive broken marriage. Her self-esteem is shot. Repercussions arise from such emotional and physical battering. Initially she feels she is undeserving of good things and this self-depreciation follows her like a shadow. But she continues to hope for better until she realises this makes her miserable. She must choose between hope and happiness. But love is on her doorstep. Can she embrace it?

Opaline, 1921. An English woman in Paris with broken French and no major skills seeking employment. She is lost in a crowd but at home among books. They calm her: give her an ‘unflinching sense of stability and groundedness’. Because words have survived, she somehow believes she will, too. I could relate to Opaline frequently for she gets a certain feeling when peering into bookshops. She battles the urge to buy more books, something all book lovers deal with every day. It is a craving to enter other worlds between the pages where realities may be different from our own. Thankfully she gets a job in a bookshop where she must learn the business from the ground up. She discovers that books, manuscripts, prints, etchings and letters only become rare when they are hard to find and in demand. When asked who her favourite author is, her answer is Emily Bronte. (This revelation warms my heart.) Then she is prodded. What questions would she ask the creator of Wuthering Heights? Opaline ponders: was she happy or sad, did she ever fall in love? Did she begin writing a second novel and if so, what happened to it? Her boss says she has the question, now she must begin searching for the answer. That means becoming a Literary sleuth: a skill vital in this business. So, this is the sacred quest she tackles and everything in the story revolves around it. The author provides us with wonderful moments as Opaline visits the Bronte home which echo my own written words. And she discovers an unexpected treasure. Eventually the Bronte question leads us from the past to the present and to Henry who is searching for this manuscript that Emily may have written or started before her death.

Who is Henry? We ask this from the start when we see him outside on the street where Martha lives staring at the numbers hoping to locate a certain bookshop that seems to have disappeared. He embarks on a journey that changes his life, once meeting Martha. I will say no more about him for discovery is part of the fun in this story.

As with fairy-tales and mysteries, there are villains of varying shades. Not just black and white. Nor is anything in this novel. It is filled with colour, mystery, magic and even mayhem.

This is a novel for lovers of books. So many great ones, along with their authors, are mentioned throughout. Its premise proves that books can take us anywhere our imaginations conjure. Yes, even to a lost bookshop that appears to a special few. Chosen ones or believers?

This is a powerful and enriching imaginative story that had me glued to its pages, wrapped in the arms of its glorious prose. A must-read for the heart that likes to step beyond boundaries. Below, I have quoted a few shining lines of wisdom from this magnificent novel by Evie Woods that I positively and passionately recommend.

5 Magical Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘Lost is not a hopeless place to be. It is a place of patience, of waiting. Lost does not mean gone forever. Lost is a bridge between worlds, where the pain of our past can be transformed into power…A story handed down through memory, lives that reveal themselves to you without words, books that breathe knowledge softly in your ear…nostalgia rescued and reborn into a new life…’

Many thanks to One More Chapter and Netgalley for my review copy