The Lost and Found Bookshop

by Susan Wiggs

I liked this book except for the end, which I thought was awful.  Natalie Harper’s boyfriend and mother both die in a plane crash when Natalie's boyfriend was flying them both to the celebration of Natalie’s promotion at work.  Her mother was the owner of a bookstore which, Natalie learns, was in great debt.  The shop is in the building owned by her grandfather, Andrew, (and several generations of his family before him) who is in the early stages of dementia. 

Natalie quits her job and takes over the bookstore and the care of her grandfather.  Her mother had already hired Peach Gallagher to make repairs on the building.  Peach is divorced but Natalie doesn’t know it when she is attracted to him.  A lot happens in the book, most of it great except for a few bouts of language and the end, where Natalie asks Peach if he’d like to spend the night.  They’ve kissed once (!!), interacted on business transactions many times, and were at one social event together.  I was so disappointed.  No matter that the rest of the book was wonderful, I would not recommend this book.

Quotes

“When she [Natalie] was very small, her mother used to tell her that books were alive in a special way.  Between the covers, characters were living their lives, enacting their dramas, falling in and out of love, finding trouble, working out their problems.  Even sitting closed on a shelf, a book had a life of its own.  When someone opened the book, that was when the magic happened.”    p. 42 ¶ 6

“You’re never alone when you’re reading a book.”    p. 55 ¶4 last sentence

After the funeral of her mother, “Everyone went back to their own lives, their work and their worries, their families and friends.   When they walked into their homes or offices or boarded a plane or train, they returned to the same world they had left.
   “For Natalie, this was not the case.   For her, nothing would ever be the same.  She now knew that the aftermath of acute and sudden grief was different, a horrible realm she’d never explored....   When she stepped into the shop that evening, she felt an emptiness so vast that she almost couldn’t breathe.  Everything had drained out of her. 
“‘It’s exhausting, isn’t it?’ asked Grandy.  ‘A sadness like this.   It’s physically exhausting.’”    p. 57 ¶2-4

nm