Member Review

I found “The Lost Bookshop” to be utterly magical and absorbing. It is a dual timeline novel. In the prologue we meet Martha who runs a beautiful shop “Opaline’s Bookshop” that tempts a small boy inside before school. Martha tells the curious boy the tale of Opaline the previous owner of the shop who first found it in 1921.

Each chapter is told in the first person in turn by Opaline beginning in 1920’s Dublin, Martha in the recent past and that of Henry her recent acquaintance.

Opaline is running from her family and tyrannical brother, who wish her to marry. She runs abroad to Paris and using her genuine love and knowledge of books gets a job at the bookshop Shakespeare and Company. Unfortunately she ends up having to run again and finds herself in Dublin where she rents an old curiosity shop and slowly adds her own flair to the shop, she sets herself up as a successful bookseller. All the while trying to hide her true identity.

Meanwhile Martha’s own story is told she is also running from a violent husband. She finds herself a job as a housemaid to a strange old woman in a large Georgian House, ideal for hiding yourself away. It is from the window of her small bedroom that we meet Henry. A slightly obsessive academic. He is convinced that a bookshop should be on the site of the house Martha is living and working in, all he has is a letter from a rare book collector to the owner of the shop, Miss Opaline Gray to prove it once existed but things get lost books, manuscripts even libraries.

I completely lost myself reading the book. The compelling stories covering addiction, violence, war, grief and other topics as they touched the lives of the three characters. All the while the mysterious bookshop and also the promise of finding a long lost manuscript haunts the pages of each of their stories. Despite the taint of sadness that is woven throughout the book so too is a hint of magic. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and look forward to reading more from this author.