The Bookshop Ladies
Women’s Fiction
Date Published: 09-10-2024
Publisher: Aria Fiction
Bestselling Irish writer, Faith Hogan, has created another gripping saga of friendship, betrayal and secrets in this story of a widow in search of answers to a shocking confession by her dying husband.
Joy Blackwood has no idea why her French art dealer husband has left a valuable painting to a woman called Robyn Tessier in Ballycove, a small town on the west coast of Ireland, but she is determined to find out.
She arrives in Ballycove to find that Robyn runs a rather chaotic and unprofitable bookshop. She is shy, suffering from unrequited love for dashing Kian, and badly in need of advice on how to make the bookshop successful.
As Joy becomes entangled in the daily dramas of Ballycove, uncovering the secrets behind her husband’s painting grows increasingly challenging. When she finally musters the courage to confront the truth, her revelation sends shockwaves through the tight-knit community she’s grown to love.
Julie’s Review:
The Bookshop Ladies is a story of friendship, love, loss, betrayal, and redemption.
The story is told across time and through various narration over the shoulder of our characters, giving us a glimpse into their world and what they are dealing with.
There are three main women characters, each connected in ways they did not know at the beginning of the story. Each has a story of heartbreak and betrayal – from someone they loved and trusted. Secrets are kept all around, and when the secrets spill out, expected pain and tears follow.
What is lovely about this book is the bookstore that brings them all together. To a book lover, there is just magic inside a bookstore. These women working together to save the shop also find ways to save each other and weave close friendship and family-like bonds.
The husbands in this story are kind of a let down, not being given a chance to have a character arc but being summarized in their actions. The best male character is the old man who owns the house where our main character rents a room. He sees it and says it like it is, which is refreshing with all the secrets swirling around.
The writing flowed easily and was a lovely read, one you could curl up with and read for hours. There is a lot of summarization and narration, where perhaps more scenes of interaction would have painted the picture differently. Overall this was an enjoyable story, though the plot development was predictable.
About the Author
Faith Hogan is an award-winning, million copy best selling author. She is a USA Today Bestseller, Irish Times Top Ten and an Amazon UK Number 1 Best Selling writer of ten contemporary fiction novels. Her books have featured as Book Club Favorites, Net Galley Hot Reads and Summer Must Reads. She writes grown up women’s fiction which is unashamedly uplifting, feel-good and inspiring.
Her new summer read The Bookshop Ladies is out in June 2024 and it’s a great big welcome back to Ballycove for her readers. She writes twisty contemporary crime fiction as Geraldine Hogan.
She lives in the west of Ireland with her family and their Labrador named Penny.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
https://mybook.to/TheBookshopLadies
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