“The thing about books is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.”
Mixing fantasy with reality, this is a lovely story set in Dublin and Paris with three intertwined and fully developed characters on two planes of time.
Martha arrives in Dublin looking to escape a life of confinement. She finds work as a live-in housekeeper for an elderly lady, a role with the anonymity and safety she seeks.
Henry comes to Dublin from the UK with an undefined need to find a lost manuscript in a bookshop that no one recalls.
Henry accidentally stumbles upon Martha, a fragile soul he finds himself drawn to for some inexplicable reason.
The third character, Opaline, has run off to Paris to avoid an arranged marriage negotiated by her over-bearing brother.
The Lost Bookshop opens slowly and unpretentiously, before exposing the twisted threads that bind the three characters with a missing bookshop that has extraordinary powers.