Lost For Words By Stephanie Butland

February 27, 2023

Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Romance

Archie had taken a chance on Loveday when she was fifteen & given her a job in his shop, allowing her love of books  to continue, a love that she had been cultivating since she was a child.
Her weariness if people had however, remained, since that day when she was ten years old & everything changed. Now she had 'a job that she loved, a boss that looked after her & a flat that was fine'.
Rob was still being annoyingly persistent but she was handling that, for now.
Who would have thought the chance discovery of a book lying on the pavement  would be the beginning of so much change.....a new love, a reprisal of her flare for poetry.....the loss of a dear friend & the unexpected acceptance of a family member who had once been so important.
'Happy Families Are All Alike
Every Unhappy Family Is 
Unhappy In Its Own Way' Anna Karenina

Thank you so much to my good friend Carol for thinking of me & sending me this book, & letting me keep it. A book centred on a bookshop.  My long term confidante knows me well & what sparks my interest.xxx
The first chapter, I found a little hard going, but then I think that can often be the case as you take in new characters & their situations, especially if there are many.
The character of Loveday  was someone who I felt that I could relate to - not because I'm a goth, & I'm well beyond my twenties - but because I understand the fragility within a family from a child's perspective. However,  I think she dealt with it much more maturely. I had a great deal of empathy for our 'Whitby girl' remembering how it feels to live in an environment heightened with a tension you have no control of. But that is where the comparison ends, other than dealing with loss. I could see the reason for her need to keep people at arms length, even those closest to her & not to want to discuss events of the past.
I really liked the dynamic between her & her boss Archie but was puzzled that she was surprised when he revealed that he had always known her past, as I would have assumed as her employer he would have been told about her background. After what happened to her as a child I really wanted to know what happened to her & whether the missing person from her life would be re-introduced into the story. It felt that the mood of the book changed in the latter part of the novel after the incident at the book shop, almost like I was reading a different story but with the same characters & I was really shocked & saddened at the sudden death of a character who I felt Loveday would be lost without, but as is often the way in life, & as the saying goes 'when one door closes another one opens,' & with an important reunion on the horizon, her substantial inheritance & her lovelife looking settled, I knew all would be well for a character I felt I'd come to know & care about, as silly as that sounds.
I would have just liked to have witness that re-union....
Oh & for anyone interested, 'earmarked, in the figurative sense' has been around since the 1570's. How hard is it to find a bookmark'?