When autumn winds start to blow and the leaves falling from the trees just beg to be scuffled through, stories with a slight magical twist to them seem to fit the Halloween season. The Lost Bookshop is just such a find. (But truthfully, no matter the season, any volume with book(s), or library in the title just seems to fall into my hands).
With two main female characters and one male living in two different times, it may take some patience to scuffle through the leaves of the chapters, but persist and you will grow to love them all, and sympathize with the tragic events they suffer through on the way to happiness and fulfillment (of course there is a happy ending!)
Opaline’s story begins in 1921, when her brother informs her she must marry a man she has never met to save the family from financial ruin. Opaline is decidedly opposed to this scheme and decides to run “away from home”. She takes with her a treasured volume, a valuable first American edition of Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. “That was how my career as a book dealer began”. Opaline has a talent for finding and selling desirable books and discovers a quirky little antique shop in Dublin, which is closed but casts a spell over her; she contacts the owner and convinces him to let her lease and reopen it. Of course, books become part of the inventory.
Martha lives in the Dublin of today, and we meet her as she flees her abusive husband. Through a newspaper ad, she applies for a job as a housekeeper for an eccentric elderly woman. The job comes with a basement apartment, just the shelter Martha needs. The mysterious Madame Bowden is like no one Martha has ever known, but she is just the right person at the right time, providing safety and acceptance, with time for healing.
One day, as Martha is gazing through her basement window, she is startled by a pair of legs. An immobile pair of legs that appear to belong to a man. Martha is annoyed and uneasy at this sight, but decides to confront the owner of these intrusive legs. His name is Henry, and he is a PhD candidate doing research on lost manuscripts. In his studies, he’s discovered that there was a bookshop on Ha’Penny Lane, at this address, and he had actually seen it on his first foray onto the street. Now it has disappeared, and Madame Bowden’s building has taken its place.
Shortly after the meeting with Henry, the basement apartment develops cracks in the walls, from which branches begin to grow into the room. The branches become bookshelves, then deliver insightful books to Martha, such as A Place Called Love.
Hardships foster rebirth; identity is forged in love and the search for “Home”. With or without magic, the book shows how courage ( and sometimes books) do lead us home.
By Carole Ann Clark: October 25, 2025 – Great Falls, Mt
Author: Staff
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