Portobello Book Blog

I have just finished reading this in the garden on a lovely warm sunny day and it is just the perfect kind of book for summer reading. I must admit that since I got my Kindle I don’t read as many physical copies of books as I used to but I do still love a wander round a good bookshop. Bookends, soon to become Happy Ever After, is the kind of small, independent bookshop which are increasingly difficult to find these days.

Posy Morland lives above the bookshop which has been her home almost all her life. Her parents worked for the owner Lavinia and when they were tragically killed in a car accident, Lavinia vowed that Posy and her younger brother Sam would always have a home there. Now Lavinia has died and true to her word, has left the bookshop to Posy. However, like many independent bookshops, Bookends is struggling and Posy is going to have to work hard to make the business a success. She decides to transform it into a shop selling only romantic novels – Happy Ever After. She hasn’t reckoned on Lavinia’s grandson Sebastian though, one of the rudest, most arrogant men who also happens to be a very successful business men and infuriatingly handsome-and-he-knows-it! Sebastian wants to turn the shop into a crime bookshop and refuses to listen to Posy.

The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts was a lovely read as we follow Posy’s plans to transform the bookshop. It was also entertaining watching her and Sebastian circling around each other and clashing time and again. I think it would be hard not to warm to Posy. She’s had such a difficult time losing her parents, losing Lavinia and facing the real possibility that she may lose her beloved bookshop, and therefore her home. It was touching to see the dedication she had to her teenage brother Sam and how she put her own ambitions of a writing career on hold to give him as stable a life as she could. Throughout the book she begins to learn to put herself first and becomes a lot more assertive. The Regency novel she begins to write as she explores her complicated relationship with Sebastian, while not a style I would normally read, was quite amusing and poor Posy became very confused about her feelings. Could she write a happy ever after for her characters that might be mirrored in real life?

I’d just like to finish with a quotation. There are lots of bookish quotes throughout the book, which if you are an avid reader you will enjoy spotting, but this one stood out for me. It’s from the letter Lavinia has left for Posy explaining why she has given her the bookshop and one I think all booklovers will identify with:

 “..you, my dear, of all people know what a magical place a bookshop can be

and that everyone needs a little magic in their lives.”

My thanks to Jaime Frost at publishers Harper Collins for offering me a review copy of this book. It’s already available as an e-book and is currently only 99p for Kindle. (Order a copy here: Little Bookshop) It will be published in paperback on 25th August.

From the back of the book

A delightful new series set in a quaint old bookshop, for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan. Where happy ever after is only a page away…

Once upon a time in a crumbling bookshop, Posy Morland hid in the pages of romantic novels.

So when Bookend’s eccentric owner, Lavinia, dies and leaves the shop to Posy, she must put down her books and join the real world. Because Posy hasn’t just inherited an ailing business, but also the attentions of Lavinia’s grandson, Sebastian, AKA The Rudest Man In London™.

Posy has six months to transform Bookends into the shop of her dreams but as Posy and her friends fight to save the bookshop, she’s drawn into a battle of wills with Sebastian, about whom she’s started to have some rather feverish fantasies…