The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods – Review

On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found.

For too long, Opaline, Martha, and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder, where nothing is as it seems.

[Reviewer’s Note: Recommended Age: 16+]

[Content Warnings: Physical, emotional, and mental abuse. Murder. Suicide. Smoking. Drinking. Incarceration. Descriptions of war.]

I am on a quest. One that began when I finally went into the bookshop that opened in our village.

Let me pause here to address the ‘village’ issue. It’s been mentioned to me more than once in my travels that ‘villages’ exist in Europe and fairytales, but not in the United States. Having grown up in a village, I had no idea other people didn’t live in them. So, for clarities sake, I do very much mean ‘village.’ In the northeast of the US, we live in villages. Mine, in fact, is bordered by a hamlet. Yes, a hamlet.

But back to my quest. A bookshop opened in our village. Wonderful, right?

Except, I was afraid to go in. That may sound odd, but the shop’s name, One Last Chapter, while delightful, told me nothing of what I might find inside. What I did know was, living in a small village, I was likely to be the only person in the shop when I did choose to enter.

What if the shopkeeper hovered? What if, the moment I walked in, I realized I didn’t care for the shop? It would be rude to walk back out. In fact, I knew I wouldn’t leave without making a purchase, because small shops make me feel obligated to, and what if there was nothing I wanted to buy?

Well, I needn’t have worried. The shopkeeper doesn’t hover (she’s very nice), the space is soothing and inviting, and the books… they have a huge fantasy section, along with romance, mystery, and science fiction. Likely some more speculative fiction as well, but I’ve yet to make it past the above. My point is, it’s as if someone made the bookshop just for me. It’s perfect.

Thus began my quest. I must read the books in the bookshop. All the fantasy books, certainly. Some of the romance and science fiction as well, and probably the mysteries. Now that I’ve been to the bookshop, I need the bookshop. I can’t have it going away on me. So, I have put away my eReader, a steady companion for decades, and taken back up print books.

I must say, I forgot how delightful they are. How much nicer it is to hold a book. To turn the pages. To be able to flip back through the pages with ease. And books aren’t nearly as heavy as I remember.

Which brings us to The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods, a book I would never have discovered if I hadn’t entered an actual bookshop, and by far the best book I’ve read in an age. One page in, I already knew the writing was superior. Two pages in, and I read the line, “A good story always begins with tea,” and knew I would enjoy the humor.

Then I reached chapter two, placed correctly on the righthand page, with a completely blank page on the left, and realized The Lost Bookshop is formatted in the classic style once used by all the top publishing houses, not scrunched together to save a few pages like so many modern books, and my love for this novel was cemented (yes, I have a weird obsession with formatting).

But what is the book about, you ask? Is it a good story?

“The thing about books,” she said, “is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.”

– Martha

The Lost Bookshop is a delightful example of magical realism, set in dual timelines of today and the 1920s, much of it in Doublin, and is unequivocally a book-lovers book. It centers around a quest for a hidden novel. It’s well written in a way that is both elevated and easy to digest, and is full of Irish charm. In the author’s own words, she sought to give us a tale with“…a little bit of magic, mystery, romance…” and she certainly succeeded.

The story is told from the perspectives of the three main characters (I could argue there is a fourth but revealing them would ruin the ending): Opaline (1920s), Martha (present), and Henry (present), and each is written in the first person (never fear, each chapter heading tells you in whose head you are). There are decided, and necessary, feminist overtones, but the themes of self-discovery, belonging, and empowerment definitely apply to us all.

Suddenly, I became a man of destiny, as though all of those years missing out on vital stores of vitamin D by ensconcing myself in libraries would finally be vindicated.

– Henry

In a nutshell, The Lost Bookshop follows all three characters as they search for a missing manuscript. Parallelling their hunt in Opaline’s timeline, which begins in the 1920s in an England ravaged by both a pandemic and a war, and now sinking into recession, and in present day Ireland. At least, that is what the characters believe the story is about. In truth, they are all searching for happiness. For the security and joy of embracing what makes you different as what makes you special, and discovering where you belong.

“All I know is that I feel so angry with myself all the time. Like I’ll never be good enough for them, so why even try?” [Martha]

“Good enough for whom? For people who are trapped in a life that is not of their own making? Surely you can see that they merely want you to be trapped with them, so they will feel less alone in their emptiness. Be careful, Martha, you’ll become blind to your own value if you keep looking through the eyes of the bourgeoisies!” [Madam Bowden]

As for the reader, we are provided harsh, but delicately handled, glimpses into the ravages of male dominated society, both in present times and in the past. This incorporation of parallel quests in two different timelines both illuminates the treatment of women in the past, and in the present. A lens is focused on how far we have come as a society, and how far we have not, entirely by design. In Woods’ own words, “I wanted to write a book that would encapsulate how I feel, as a woman, about the women who have been marginalized in the past and continue to be written out of their own stories, even today.”

But emphasis must be put on ‘delicately handled.’ The Lost Bookshop is a beautiful, engrossing book about life and headaches, and contains an intricate, dual timeline quest, more than one love story, and well-researched, delightful historical and present-day details. What readers will notice, and be enamored by, are the depictions of both past and present-day places, and the particulars of what life as a 1920s, 30s, and 40s bookdealer, apparently a golden age of antiquarianism, was like.

…people who cared every bit as much about the day-to-day trivialities of life as we do; people living through some of the most amazing times whilst being wholly unaware of the significance.

– Henry

The point is, despite the strength and importance of the underlying messages, you will not be browbeat. You will be taken along on a lovely, enjoyable journey. One well written enough that, at one point, one character handing another a copy of The Personal History of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens will actually make you cry. In a good way.

“…it didn’t matter whether the decision you made was right or wrong, as long as you made it. That’s what moved you along in life.”

– Henry, quoting his sister, Lucinda

This book is highly recommended to all lovers of both books and magic. You will be entranced by detailed glimpses into the first half of the 1900s, and the world of treasure hunting for books. Even educated by the continued references to historical locations and literature (don’t worry, it won’t hurt). Lastly, you will take a heartfelt journey of acceptance, and find your way home.

“I was almost at the end [of a book] and I was trying to ration it out, like saving squares of a chocolate bar as a kid to make it last longer.”

– Martha

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