Ahhhh bookshops. How do we love thee? Let us count the ways. We love how each one has its own personality. We love the smell of those books. We love getting lost in aisles of carefully curated selections. We love bookshop owners and how they are always so knowledgeable. We even love forking over our hard-earned money for the promise of a fresh new read (or five). If you love bookshops as much as we do, this list is for you. All of these books take place in or feature book stores and is our little ode to bookshops everywhere.
Much Ado About You By Samantha Young
At thirty-three-years old Evangeline Starling’s life in Chicago is missing that special something. And when she’s passed over for promotion at work, Evie realizes she needs to make a change. Some time away to regain perspective might be just the thing. In a burst of impulsivity, she plans a holiday in a quaint English village. The holiday package comes with a temporary position at Much Ado About Books, the bookstore located beneath her rental apartment. There’s no better dream vacation for the bookish Evie, a life-long Shakespeare lover.
Not only is Evie swept up in running the delightful store as soon as she arrives, she’s drawn into the lives, loves and drama of the friendly villagers. Including Roane Robson, the charismatic and sexy farmer who tempts Evie every day with his friendly flirtations. Evie is determined to keep him at bay because a holiday romance can only end in heartbreak, right? But Evie can’t deny their connection and longs to trust in her handsome farmer that their whirlwind romance could turn into the forever kind of love.
The Bookshop on the Corner By Jenny Colgan
Series Name: Scottish Bookshop # 1
Nina is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.
Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile — a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling. From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend By Katarina Bivald
It all began with a correspondence between two quite different women: 28-year-old Sara from Haninge, Sweden, and 65-year-old Amy from the small town of Broken Wheel, Iowa. After years of exchanging books, letters and thoughts on the meaning of literature and life, Sara, mousy, disheveled, who has never been anywhere in her life–has really lived only for her work in a beloved bookshop, which has just closed its doors for the last time–bravely decides to accept her unknown friend’s invitation to visit. But when she arrives, she finds her house empty, the funeral guests just heading home. . .
Sara finds herself alone. And what choice do the inhabitants of Broken Wheel have but to take care of their bewildered tourist? And what choice does Sara have, faced with a town where nobody reads and her desire to honour her friend, but to set up the perfect bookshop with all the books she and Amy shared–from Yann Martel’s Life of Pi to Iris Murdoch and Jo Nesbo, to Bridget Jones and Doug Coupland’s All Families Are Psychotic to Little House on the Prairie? And then watch as the townsfolk are, one by one, transformed in unexpected ways. . .
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill By Abbi Waxman
The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book.
When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They’re all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She’ll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It’s a disaster! And as if that wasn’t enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn’t he realize what a terrible idea that is?
Nina considers her options.
- Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.)
- Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee).
- Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)
It’s time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn’t convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It’s going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.
The Library of Lost Things by Laure Taylor Namey
From the moment she first learned to read, literary genius Darcy Wells has spent most of her time living in the worlds of her books. There, she can avoid the crushing reality of her mother’s hoarding and pretend her life is simply ordinary.
But then Asher Fleet, a former teen pilot with an unexpectedly shattered future, walks into the bookstore where she works…and straight into her heart. For the first time in her life, Darcy can’t seem to find the right words. Fairy tales are one thing, but real love makes her want to hide behind her carefully constructed ink-and-paper wall.
Still, after spending her whole life keeping people out, something about Asher makes Darcy want to open up. But securing her own happily-ever-after will mean she’ll need to stop hiding and start living her own truth—even if it’s messy. Read our review here.
True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop By Annie Darling
Series Name: Lonely Hearts Bookshop # 1
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good job, four bossy sisters and a needy cat must also have want of her one true love. Or is it?Another delightful novel from the author of The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts. Perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny ColganVerity Love – Jane Austen fangirl and an introvert in a world of extroverts – is perfectly happy on her own (thank you very much), and her fictional boyfriend Peter is very useful for getting her out of unwanted social events. But when a case of mistaken identity forces her to introduce a perfect stranger as her boyfriend, Verity’s life suddenly becomes much more complicated. Johnny could also use a fictional girlfriend. Against Verity’s better judgement, he persuades her to partner up for a summer season of weddings, big number birthdays and garden parties, with just one promise – not to fall in love with each other.
McKettrick’s Pride By Linda Lael Miller
Series Name: McKettricks #7
The only wide-open space Rance McKettrick wants to see in his future is his hometown in his rearview mirror. The down-to-earth ex-rancher is determined to make a fresh start with his two young daughters—and leave his heartbreaking loss and family’s corporation far behind. He sure doesn’t need Indian Rock’s free-spirited new bookstore owner, Echo Wells, confusing his choices…and raising memories he’d rather forget. But her straightforward honesty and reluctance to trust is challenging everything Rance thought he knew about himself. And when their irresistible attraction puts their hearts on the line, Rance and Echo must come to grips with who they really are in order to find a once-in-a-lifetime happiness.
The Little Bookshop on the Seine By Rebecca Raisin
Series Name: The Little Paris Collection # 1
When bookshop owner Sarah Smith is offered the opportunity for a job exchange with her Parisian friend Sophie, saying yes is a no-brainer—after all, what kind of romantic would turn down six months in Paris? Sarah is sure she’s in for the experience of a lifetime—days spent surrounded by literature in a gorgeous bookshop, and the chance to watch the snow fall on the Eiffel Tower. Plus, now she can meet up with her journalist boyfriend, Ridge, when his job takes him around the globe.
But her expectations cool faster than her café au lait soon after she lands in the City of Light—she’s a fish out of water in Paris. The customers are rude, her new coworkers suspicious and her relationship with Ridge has been reduced to a long-distance game of phone tag, leaving Sarah to wonder if he’ll ever put her first over his busy career. As Christmas approaches, Sarah is determined to get the shop—and her life—back in order…and make her dreams of a Parisian happily-ever-after come true. Read our review here.
The Bermondsey Bookshop By Mary Gibson
Bermondsey, 1920s: After her mother’s death, Kate is taken in by her father’s sister, the quick-tempered Aunt Sylvie. Already struggling to feed children of her own, Aunt Sylvie treats Kate like an unwanted burden. Although Kate’s father disappeared when she was a child, she still harbors hope that he will one day reappear and release her from this miserable existence. If only she knew why he left and what really happened to her mother.
One day, after a terrible argument, 18-year-old Kate is thrown out. Desperate to land on her own two feet, she answers an advert for a cleaner at The Bermondsey Bookshop and Reading Room. Little does she know that her life is about to be changed forever.
In this cozy shop in Bermondsey Street, owned by a wealthy, idealistic young woman, Kate’s eyes are opened to a whole new world. The bookshop is a vibrant meeting place for the local factory workers and dockers, and the free reading room is a place where they can read in peace and attend lectures by the famous literary lights of the day. Here Kate rubs shoulders with Johnny “Rasher” Bacon, the docker who goes to read Marx, and Martin Cliffe, the handsome, upperclass student who comes to hear H.G. Wells speak.
But when Kate recognizes a stranger from her past, can she be sure that he is all that he seems? And will she be true to her roots and pick the fiery young Docker “Rasher” Bacon? Or can the handsome young scholar Martin Cliffe persuade Kate that love can bridge the gulf between their two worlds?
The Little Bookshop of Love Stories By Jaimie Admans
Having lost her job and humiliated herself in front of a whole restaurant full of diners, this is absolutely, one hundred percent, the worst day of her life. That is until she receives an email announcing that she is the lucky winner of the Once Upon a Page Bookshop!
Owning a bookshop has always been Hallie’s dream, and when she starts to find secret love letters on the first page of every book, she knows she’s stumbled across something special. But Hallie’s beloved bookshop is in financial trouble, and with sales dwindling, she can’t help but wonder if she is really cut out to run a business. Things start to look up when she meets gorgeous, bookish Dimitri and between them, they post a few of the hidden messages online, reuniting people who thought they were lost forever. But maybe it’s time for Hallie to find her own happy-ever-after, too?
