I wanted to love this book, but unfortunately the characters are not interesting (and unrelatable for me) and the story line is boring. I thought things were picking up 100 pages in and kept reading, but finally decided to stop reading the book at p. 215. The author switches between points of view of the characters throughout the book; two main characters’ points of view are written in first person and another’s in third person. It is very distracting and disruptive to the flow of the story. I didn’t see an underlying message in the story to make it worth finishing.

I love Katherine Reay’s writing style. Every story is effortless, true to life, and enjoyable. The Printed Letter Bookshop didn’t have a show-stopping story line, but the real-ness of the characters and their life-struggles resonated with me. I enjoyed every line.

3.75/5: Charming

I absolutely loved this book! I purposely took my time to finish it because I didn’t want it to end. Stories about friendship and finding your true place in life are my favorite. This book gave me both of those. The stories of Madeline, Janet, and Claire were easy to slide into. The three women were also very easy to love! They are women that I would want to be friends with. Watching each of them work through different problems while working together to bring a small bookstore back to life was interesting.
The women were brought together by a unique and loving woman that somehow knew they needed each other before they knew it.
Please read this book, you will love it♥️

A heart-warming story about an estranged niece, Madeline, who inherits her aunt's bookshop at a crossroads in her own life. Claire and Janet, the two bookshop employees, are rightfully suspicious of their new boss. Endearing characters with a number of good plot twists...a solid 4 stars.

Three women connected by one woman who had a bookshop. Her death brings them together and helps them find their way. Another beautiful story by Katherine Reay.

“He didn’t come to my crossroads. He hasn’t read a list of books full of people experiencing far worse and yet understanding that there is more that matters in a life than what happens in a moment, or in this earth; that it often isn’t the events that haunt us, though those hold power and can harm us, it is the choices we make within those events we carry all our days.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

This story and the characters of Winsome felt like coming home.

Side note: It is very hard to find books written for women that are enjoyable, charming, and not full of sex scenes. I didn't have to skip over a single page in this book, and that's so refreshing.

This book took me awhile to get into, and I didn't love parts of it, but it won me over by the end. I'm no stranger to bookshops as settings in books these days; it is a very popular theme lately. While this one wasn't my favourite of these types of books, I did begin to really feel for the characters and root for their success by the end of the book. I just didn't emotionally connect with the characters as I maybe thought I could have.

Thank you kindly to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley and Edelweiss for the ARC of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I enjoyed this book overall, but...I know I'm not going to make any friends when I say this, but this book was a little too Hallmark-Movie-Channel for me. I found it almost entirely predictable, it occasionally got confusing bouncing between three different narrators, and the storyline was a little tired. The characters were fun though, and relatable. There were a couple of parts that were really touching. All in all I'd say this was a fun, easy, quick read that makes a great brain-break.