Loved The Keeper of Stories, so was so excited to read this second book by Sally Page,
The Book of Beginnings is a story of friendship tied up in grief and hidden histories.
Jo, who the story centres around, finds herself in London, looking after a quaint shop owned by her unwell uncle. As she settles into her temporary job, she meets fascinating people, neighbouring business owners, and interesting customers, some of whom become trusted and treasured friends.
There were so many layers to this story, including a little love story or two that tugged at the heartstrings.
A great read!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for an ARC.

I really enjoyed Sally Page’s debut The Keeper of Stories so was excited to read her next one. This took me a while to get into as I didn’t warm to the main character Jo at first. I couldn’t see why she’d stay with someone that thinks her hobbies childish and embarrasses her in public! Sally Page does however have a wonderful talent for writing stories within stories. I don’t think Jo’s story will stay with me but the ‘ghosts’ stories will, especially that of John Lobb. I was left wanting to visit Highgate Cemetery!

Thank you Netgalley, Sally Page and HarperCollins for this ARC.

This is a novel about the need for friendship and how its source can come from unexpected places. Jo Sorsby is looking after her ailing Uncle Wilbur’s somewhat eccentric hardware and stationary shop, which has a wonderful display of fountain pens amongst other delights. Although Jo is stepping into the brink here to help her family out, she is also nursing a broken heart and is glad of the distraction. Two customers become very important to her, “The Runaway Vicar“ a.k.a. the Reverend Ruth Hamilton, whose first purchase is envelopes and Malcolm Bussell, who buys notebooks as he is writing his first novel at the ripe old age of 80. Then, of course, there is Eric the Viking, from Birmingham, but that’s quite another story.

Initially, I don’t find it easy to get into this as it’s a bit ponderous and over detailed at the start. However, I soon find myself drawn into these characters lives, in understanding
Jo’s backstory as well as that of Ruth and Malcolm, and they become more and more interesting. I love the theme of friendship, the necessity and power of it which is hard to deny and how it can span the ages. The characters are all really likeable though I confess to a particular soft spot from Malcolm who has an interesting background and his Highgate cemetery research for his novel gives the storytelling a fascinating edge. Eric provides some good story lines too as well as some amusement.

As the novel progresses, there are some really enjoyable scenes, those in Highgate Cemetery are especially good with its resident ghosts, there are some entertaining ones in Malcolm‘s house and a chilly one where Ruth and Jo cold water swim. It’s very evident with the Highgate strand to the storytelling that Sally Page has extensively researched and it makes me want to visit!

This is a gentle tale, it takes its time, it’s a heartwarming story with an ending that makes me happy. Although I do enjoy it, it’s not quite in the same league as the Keeper of Stories.

PS. The repetitive “a place for everything and everything in its place“ drives me bonkers!

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to HarperCollins/HarperFiction for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

A nice feel good story but I found that I was bored at times. It lacked intensity and I struggled to keep reading. I don’t think it is a memorable book but I’m sure others will enjoy it..

The best book I’ve read for a while, I couldn’t stop reading it. A Yorkshire lady Jo Sorsby is jilted and seizes the opportunity to move to north London to look after her uncle’s stationery shop where she can decide what she wants to do with her life. During the course of running the shop she makes a number of friends who she helps and they help her put her life back together. A delightful story brilliantly written and definitely recommended.

This is a heart-warming story and I loved Jo, the central character. It explores relationships, loneliness, and friendship. Overall, the story had far more potential.

Joanne (Jo) Sorsby, 38, is temporarily taking care of her uncle Wilbur's small shop selling hardware and stationery. Her uncle, diagnosed with dementia, has moved to a care institution, hoping it will be a short move. The neighbouring shops have - Lando optician, and Eric tattoo artist. After a hilarious episode, she realizes Eric is the optician and Lando the tattoo artist! Jo feels a sense of loneliness – her relationship with James ended 4 months back. At school, Lucy was her best friend, who is now married to Sanjeev. But they have grown apart now. Her parents live in a farmhouse with her brother Chris now managing most things. Her younger brother Ben manages a livestock market. Jo has lived with the label of “Average Jo” since long – she has felt she has been that in everything she has done.

Malcolm, who is retired and now writing a book is her first and regular customer. The other regular customer is Ruth, a vicar who has moved from her Parish recently. Jo forms a bond with Eric, Lando, Malcolm & Ruth. She starts writing letters to Lucy with her experiences in the shop, hoping it will help to re-vitalize her friendship. After a few weeks, Lucy visits her, with a chance for them to reduce the distance which has crept in between them. Jo also takes stock of her life shortly after, and what she wants to do next.

This is a feel-good book and I found myself rooting for Jo to find direction and happiness in her life. There are a few refreshing episodes in the story – the most striking being a conversation between Malcolm and Jo. As Jo confides her relationship frustrations to Malcolm, he explains gently that James was her lover but not a friend, and that is important in a relationship. James appears not to have had her aspirations & best interests in mind. Malcolm also says he grew distant from a friend which she should not do. The characters of Jo, Malcolm & Ruth are very well explored. I would have liked to see more of Eric & Lando’s characters. I felt Jo’s new developing relationship to be poorly explained. The story has quite a few touching moments, and yet I felt it fell short of potential.

This is a book you should read when in the mood for something gentle, easy and heart-warming.

My rating: 3.25 / 5.

Jo is at the end of a long relationship as she returns home not knowing what to do with her life. When her mum tells her that her Uncle Wilbur has been hospitalised with Alzheimers and she needs someone to take over his stationary shop in London,
Jo volunteers thinking some time to herself in a different place would be good for her.

I loved this book but I don't know how to describe it.
We hear about the people who use the shop and Jo is helpful to everyone and makes friends quickly.
The main people are Ruth the runaway vicar and Malcolm a lonely man in his seventies. The three of them become friends and bond over the stories that Malcom tells them about the people who are buried in Highgate cemetery which he spends his time researching.
This is a story of friendship and finding new friends in unexpected places. It's a story of moving on and starting life again and it's a story of different kinds of love.
A special mention has to go to the ending of this book,it brought tears to my eyes.
This is the second book by Sally Page. I loved her debut novel, The Keeper of Secrets, and like this one it is a little bit different from other books.
A good read.

What a gem of a book!
Jo is heartbroken when her relationship ends so it seems a good idea to leave her beloved North East to look after her Uncle Wilbur's shop in London while he recuperates with Jo's parents.
The shop is a mixture of hardware and stationery, slightly chaotic and a bit run down. But it brings back memories of time spent with her favourite Uncle and Jo is soon making little changes and sprucing the place up.
Jo happily chats to her customers and takes time to get to know them. There's the policeman ashamed of his handwriting and particularly Malcolm who seems sad and lonely and Ruth, who Jo soon realises has a big secret.
There are also Lando, neat and dark haired and Eric, tattooed, big and blond who's laugh sounds like a walrus. A n optician and a tattoo artist.
As Jo puts her own mark on the shop these people become increasingly important to her but she yearns for her best friend Lucy, whose dungarees Jo wears regularly. Can she get their friendship back on an even keel?
This book is about relationships; new, old, family and romantic. It's also about how we perceive ourselves and are perceived by others. It's a little bit about bullying (you'll know them when you find them) and it's a lot about love in all it's guises.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Jo is happy to work at her families shop. She gets to meet different individuals every day. They make her see her life in a different perspective. This book was well written.

A wonderfully gentle book about love and friendship and being true to yourself. There are tears, regrets and heartbreak but also fun in unexpected places, new and old relationships developing, and people becoming who they were always meant to be.

I loved the characters: Malcolm and Ruth, Eric the Viking, and of course, Jo. They have stayed with me and I'd love to meet them again. Perhaps they could all get together in another book - I'm sure they have plenty more adventures in them.

The scenes in Highgate cemetery were delightful - never thought I'd ever say that - and the 'ghosts' entertaining. A heart-warming summer read.

It is 18 months ago that I felt privileged to read The Keeper of Stories. I remember writing in my review, ‘Isn’t it wonderful when you find a new favourite author?’. This comes from someone who thought she only liked to read crime thrillers (me), until I experienced the beautiful and captivating writing of Sally Page. I have been looking for her name ever since and was thrilled when I was given the opportunity to read The Book of Beginnings. I just can’t tell you how much I loved this book. I went to bed last night at 8pm to start reading it (I’m old – I go to bed early!) and was still there at 1pm today when I finished it. At the end of the last chapter my cheeks were wet with tears, and after reading the short epilogue my partner came upstairs to find out why I was sobbing.
Everything about the story moved me. Fountain pens for a starter! I have always loved to write - letters, not books – and I am determined now to replace the pen of my dreams (which I owned but which gave up the ghost many years ago) and purchase the bottles of coloured inks which I used to own and treasure, and to write a long letter to my very best friend.
There isn’t one character in this story that I didn’t love – Jo, Ruth and Malcom, what a trio! – and the ghosts (I’ve already researched 2 of them), and Eric, and all the others. Wonderful, just wonderful. Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publishers, and to Sally Page who deserves all the success in the world.

A joyous book that flows easily, even when there was not happening that much I was glued to the page. The simplicity of basic needs such as not to be lonely. Or to be enough which is a theme very much alive these days as it should be with this demanding society with all its green grass, expectations, and pressure. Yet... people are more alike than they are different.

And of course the humility and comfort of writing with a fountain pen. When you are a fan of those, you have an anecdote or happy memory to go with it, don't you?!

Delightful, just what I needed (being ill with ME, housebound, and still not used to it after 18 years...) therefore The Book of Beginnings is very worthy of a place on my for-a-rainy-day shelf on Goodreads :)

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book.

Warm and emotional

Heartwarming and just lovely

All about lonliness and the power of friendshps

This will warm the cockles of your heart

A sweet book, with likeable characters, and a real feel-good story. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as The Keeper of Stories as it wasn't quite as humorous, and was very slightly cliched, but it is still a very entertaining read.

This was a joyful read and a wonderful celebration of friendship, moving on and stationary! There’s a lovely bunch of characters starting with Jo who is looking after her uncle’s shop in London whilst recovering from a relationship breakup which led to her having to leave her job too. Jo really misses her best friend but feels things aren’t right between them but it’s the new friends she makes in neighbouring shop keepers and especially two certain customers that help her move forward. Both Ruth and Malcolm have some great backstories and I love the unlikely friendship and especially the ghosts. This is a really well crafted and uplifting read and I personally preferred this to the authors first book. 9/10

A really charming little book; I loved it. The characters of Joanne, Malcolm and Ruth were brought to life perfectly. As for the ghosts of Highgate Cemetery meeting up on Christmas Eve, this was inspiring. What really won me over was that the people buried in the cemetery each played a big part in this novel in the telling of their separate lives. The research by the author must have been extensive and the listed bibliography so very helpful, as I was curious to learn more about these famous people and their colourful lives. It was also good to have a happy ending that still left room for imagination.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers HarpersCollins, for this advance copy.

The Book of Beginnings by Sally Page is another extraordinary read by the author of The Keeper of Stories. This book is about friendship and making new friends and reconnecting with old friends. Jo Sorsby is the main female character in this story and how she looks after her uncle’s stationary shop when he is taken ill and later is diagnosed with dementia. She has just been dumped by her boyfriend Julian with whom she had hoped to marry and have children.
As you learn more about Jo, you realise that none of her family or friends thought he was good enough for her. She makes friends with two of her customers, Malcolm a septuagenarian and Ruth, the runaway vicar. Everyone you meet has a story to tell maybe you just need to find time to listen.
A fascinating book with wonderful stories to tell the reader, you just need to sit back, relax and read.
Highly recommended

What an amazing read this book is! I had not realised till the end that the author was the author of Keeper of Stories, which was also a five star book for me. I am in awe of Sally Page’s writing. Her characterisation is flawless, I was drawn immediately into the life of Jo, and the people she meets when she leaves the north east to travel to London. She is taking over her favourite uncle’s stationery shop while he is ill, and she herself is nursing a broken heart. Her initial isolation and loneliness is soon displaced by meeting with the owners of the neighbouring shops, and the many interesting people who come into her shop.
In the process of reevaluating her life, her future, her previous love affair, and her seemingly fractured relationship with her best friend Lucy. Jo’s develops friendships with unlikely people of different ages and backgrounds. Together they embark on a fascinating historical writing project based on famous, long dead people from London.
How this project unfolds and develops is ingenious in its originality.
This book does not really slot into a particular genre, rather it is a standalone work of genius, only equalled by Keeper of Stories. I am sorry to leave behind the story of Jo and her sojourn in London, now I have finished the book. I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to read the advance copy of this book.
It is beautifully written, and so refreshingly original. I highly recommend it.
My thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

This was a srtange story to begin with but I got more and drawn.in. I loved the area of London it was set and the non London bit in the moors is where I live now. So all that was excellent . I love the Highgate cemetery part. The 3 characters who became friends were lovely. The stationery shop was my kind of heaven. The fountain pens I wanted to try… The way the author talked about past people. I defiinetly want to find out more about some of the people in the cemetery. You also had the controlling boyfriend and the best friend . You just have to read it . Loved it. The ru away vicar was great and her back story and a great ending. Perfect

What a wonderful book! Amazing characters and a just lovely story. Highly recommended. A perfect holiday read.