How to Find Love in a Book Shop

by Veronica Henry

Nightingale Books, nestled on the high street in the idyllic Cotswold town of Peasebrook, is a dream come true for booklovers.

But owner Emilia Nightingale is struggling to keep the shop open. The temptation to sell up is proving enormous - but what about the promise she made to her father? Not to mention the loyalty she owes to her customers.
Sarah Basildon, owner of stately pile Peasebrook Manor, has used the book shop as an escape from all her problems in the past few years. But is there more to her visits than meets the eye?

Since messing up his marriage, Jackson asks Emilia for advice on books to read to the son he misses so much. But Jackson has a secret, and is not all he seems...

And there's Thomasina, painfully shy, who runs a pop-up restaurant from her tiny cottage. She has a huge crush on a man she met and then lost in the cookery section, somewhere between Auguste Escoffier and Marco Pierre White. Can she find the courage to admit her true feelings?

How to Find Love in a Book Shop is the delightful story of Emilia's fight to keep her book shop alive, the customers whose lives she has touched - and the books they all love.

• ISBN10: 140916568X
• ISBN13: 9781409165682
• Publish Date: 16 June 2016
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 5 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Imprint: Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Bianca]

So that was why people read. Because books explained things: how you thought, and how you behaved, and made you realise you were not alone in doing what you did or feeling what you felt.

— A book about a book shop and the lives it has changed. It was lovely, but not remarkable

[MurderByDeath]

The title's a pretty strong implication of romance, but it's not, strictly speaking, a romance novel.  Left to standard categorical labels, I'd call this more a blend of contemporary and chick-lit with a strong thread of love throughout.   The story follows the lives of half a dozen people, 4 of whom have their lives altered by their connection to the village bookshop, Nightingale Books.  Emilia is the only daughter of the recently passed owner, determined to carry on and keep the doors open in spite of the uphill battle.  Sarah is the lady of the manor house and is the poster child for silent suffering; her daughter Alice is lightness personified but dreadfully naive.  Jackson is a man with a good heart and the victim of his own lack of courage and conviction, who gets himself stuck doing something distasteful.  Thomasina is a painfully shy introvert who crushes on the cheese monger she met in the cookbook section.   They all have different stories, and their stories involve the stories of others.  Some are painfully predictable (mostly the falling-in-love ones) but some are more complicated, with the author choosing to take the story in an unexpected, or at least atypical, direction. For me, Emilie's story was the most compelling and the reason I kept reading - I wanted to know about the bookshop!  It sounded magical, perfect and I wanted to know what happened to it.  But everyone else's story was good too.  ;-)   It was an easy, enjoyable read.  Almost a beach read, but not.  There are a lot of painful moments scattered throughout, especially at the start when there are a few chapters that take place in the past, building up the world that's crashing down in the present; sniffly moments.  Maybe good for the beach if you remember to pack tissues in your beach bag.  Just in case.

[llamareads]

What a lovely, sweet book. When Emilia returns to her hometown to take over her father’s bookstore after his death, her life intersects with friends old and new. But how can an old, rundown, in-the-red bookstore bring happiness and love to an entire village? Yes, the plot is predictable. Yes, there are zero consequences for some pretty awful actions. But none of that really matters, because the book is so cozy and charming that you can’t help but enjoy it and accept the happily-ever-afters. This quote from the book says it best:

"As the door shut behind her newest customer, she felt a tiny thrill, and hoped he’d read the book and fall in love with reading. That was the whole point of Nightingale Books. It cast a spell over its customers by introducing them to the magic. And how wonderful, for her to open up a whole new world— She realized she was being utterly ridiculous. She was romanticizing. This wasn’t some Hollywood movie where she unwittingly changed someone’s life."

I received an ARC from First to Read in exchange for an honest review.

[Leah]

How To Find Love In A Bookshop is literally the perfect book for book lovers. I mean – come on, is there anything better for a bookworm than a book that features a bookshop? It’s like nirvana for us book nerds. So, of course, as soon as I heard about Veronica Henry’s new book I had to read it. I had to wait a little while, as I was second in the queue to get it from my library (grrrrr) but it came! It arrived! And it was just as fantastic as I expected from a book with a bookshop in it. I highly doubt there could be a bad book with a bookshop in it, it’s just physically impossible. The only disappointment? That Nightingale Books is not a real book shop because it sounded absolutely divine. Like how I feel about Waterstones, but better so the fact I can’t go and visit this book shop makes me so sad, and I would be so, so interested in where Veronica got her inspiration for Nightingale Books.

How To Find Love In A Bookshop features many characters, but the recurring theme is the fact that Julius Nightingale meant something to all of them, and as such so did Nightingale Books, none more so than his daughter, Emilia, who is left to pick up the pieces after his death, but she’s not alone! Because like I said, Julius was important to so many people – the staff at Nightingale Books, Thomasina, who is so shy, but so sweet, Sarah, who was very close to Julius, everyone Julius met he touched and that’s the feeling you get from this book, it’s so warm. so homely,

I knew as soon as I started it that I was going to enjoy this book and it was to my eternal sadness that we only see a little bit of Julius himself, because what we do see of him shows that he was a great, great man and I would have loved more of him, but from what we saw of him he really was a tremendous man. I imagined myself going into the shop when he was alive and getting fabulous recommendations from him – and even from Emilia, and everyone else who worked there, it seemed like the greatest place to work, ever, and Julius’s spirit is always there, he’s always in the background. You really could lose yourself in this book, and imagine yourself living in Peasebrooke, and going to Peasebrooke manor, or having dinner A Deux with Thomasina.

I really, thoroughly enjoyed How To Find Love In A Bookshop. It was an absolute delight, from start to finish. I cared about all of the characters, I rooted for them, I wanted the best for them. This is by far my favourite read from Veronica and I love how her books are so thoughtful and warm, I got the warm and fuzzies numerous times while reading and that’s just the best feeling in the world. This was such a great read, I loved and devoured it very, very quickly.