Love Letters at the Borrow A Bookshop

 Engaging, Entertaining, Intriguing

Contemporary Fiction/Romance

Love Letters at the Borrow A Book Shop by Kiley Dunbar

Austen Archer can’t believe her luck when she spots the advert to apply to own a bookshop and cafe for two weeks in a seaside village in Devon. She has loved books since she was a child, and had a particular penchant and affection for poetry. However, following an unfortunate incident that had taken place a year ago, she hadn’t been able to write a thing. She hoped that some time to herself, somewhere new, would perhaps evoke her imagination and her muse would once again return. However, not only was Austen about to rekindle her love of the written word but she was also about to get the chance to bring closure to her past and create a new and exciting future.

Obviously, the word ‘bookshop’ was what drove me to this novel, which opens with the advert that Austen has come across. Now, many of us bookworms dream about this scenario, owning your own bookshop and coffee shop/cafe in a picturesque village. I’ve never been that bothered about the cafe side to it as the two combined seems a lot of work for one person on their own, and this was what struck me about Austen’s predicament, committing herself to managing both sides of this business for two weeks. However, we learn that she had originally applied with someone else, but that particular association had ended rather abruptly due to Austen’s heartfelt impetuousness, and a big misunderstanding. Through Jowan, the owner of the ‘Borrow a Bookshop’, she learns that to the locals, she is now known as ‘a borrower’, there are a certain amount of pre-arranged ‘book’ activities that she will be expected to set up and run during her time there. ‘Meet the author’ evenings, for which writers and authors had been pre-booked were also to take place, and at the end of her fortnight, the tradition was for the ‘borrower’ to leave a window display reflecting their taste in literature. The current window display, triggers memories of days gone by and the event that stole her gift of writing as she accidentally lets it slip to Jowan, that she used to know the Author. She is then somewhat relieved to learn (as was I) that throughout her stay, she will be assisted by volunteers from within the village to help out. One such volunteer is Pattie Walker, and the two of them have an instant connection. She is often accompanied by her niece Radier who is a delightful, funny and astute six year old. Meanwhile, having posted on social media on the first morning, she receives a comment from a bookseller in Paris, and the two spend considerable amounts of time sending messages back and forth to the point that it takes over much of Austen’s time, leaving little for her new found friends and acquaintances. It isn’t until Patti points out that this virtual companion may not be who they say they are, prompting Austen to consider that her friend may be right when she is ‘ghosted’ by the elusive Delphine. Only then, does Austen realise that she should have been putting more into relationships with the real people around her.

On the other side of the village, Minty Clove-Congreve is watching as a mother and son climb out of a taxi cab parked haphazardly in the middle of her gravel driveway, which is shortly followed by two large removal vans. To her horror, she realises that they are the new owners of Apartment one, but Minty is horrified at the amount of belongings the pair appear to have brought with them, given the size of their new home. After a brief introduction with the mother, clad in designer gear far too young for a woman of her advancing years, Minty decides to leave them to it after Jowan makes the valid point that they aren’t her tenants anyway.

Jasper is ill prepared for the realities of life without his father’s fortune, a mother who doesn’t appear to be equipped to get through the day without a myriad of pills and supplements, and a mounting pile of red bills, that despite fleeing London, are still continuing to be deposited in their allotted post hole. His first encounter with a villager is when he meets Samantha who runs the local laundry, and she writes him off as a snobby, self entitled pillock. Of course then, as karma would have it, he is forced to come crawling to her for a job as it slowly dawns on him that it is down to him to earn a living now that his mother’s acting work has dried up, and Sam sees another side to Jasper.

Mrs Crocombe, the much beloved proprietor of the local ice cream parlour’s many years of match making is reflected back at her, when the villagers take it upon themselves to organise her very own liaison with a long standing admirer, and a poetry evening on Austen’s last night convinces her to put her past to bed and look to the future involving a trip to a bookshop in Paris.

Love Letters at the Borrow a Bookshop is a delightful story of self discovery, self acceptance, learning to accept others as they are and never judging a book by its cover.