June 12, 2019

The Lost For Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

Genre/Categories: Contemporary Fiction, Booksellers and Bookshops, Books About Books, England

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Summary:

Young Loveday Cardew works in a bookshop and prefers books to people. Her discrete tattoos feature a few of her favorite first lines. Even though the bookshop is her sanctuary and a place where she can hide from her secrets, some mysterious packages with links to her past arrive and shatter her sense of safety. With support from a caring boss and the kindness of a young poet, can she find the courage to face her past and find hope for a bright future?

Amazon Rating: 4.2 Stars

My Thoughts:

The Lost For Words Bookshop had me at the title and the cover! When there’s a bookshop on the cover and the reviews mention the importance of this bookshop as a place of safety for a young girl traumatized by her past, it becomes a must read for me!

Trust me, if you love bookstores, literary references, and appreciate against-the-odds stories, you will find Loveday Cardew compelling.

From my reviews, you know that I love quirky characters, their stories, and their bravery and courage to live their best life. Loveday is rough around the edges but I grew to love and admire her spunk, resilience, and independent spirit. She is a survivor.

“Small memories come from the kind of tiny reminders that you simply can’t predict, and so can’t protect yourself from, and they catch you, paper cuts across the heart.”

“A bookshop is not magic, but it can slowly heal your heart.”

Throughout The Lost For Words Bookshop, we get flashbacks of Lovejoy’s childhood and the trauma she suffered. One of her survival strategies includes keeping her words to herself. It’s ironic that she ended up feeling safe in a bookshop when she was “lost for words.”

This engaging, thoughtful, and poignant story also includes themes of healing, friendship, learning to trust, and generously caring for the hurting/vulnerable/innocents that cross our path in life.

Recommended: I’m definitely recommending The Lost For Words Bookshop for bibliophiles and used bookstore patrons, for fans of characters who fight bravely to live their best life, for readers who adore books about books, and for book clubs. This was published a year ago and I don’t see it promoted frequently, so I am eager to provide a review for this endearing story.

***trigger warnings for memories of and references to domestic abuse

My Rating: 5 Stars

Lost For Words Bookshop Information

Meet the Author, Stephanie Butland

Stephanie Butland is a writer, who is thriving after breast cancer. (She used to say she was a survivor, but that was a bit lacking in joie de vivre.)
Although she’d never have chosen it, her dance with cancer has changed her life in many positive ways. Now she is happier, healthier, and more careful with her precious life and the precious people and things in it. Her writing career began with her dance with cancer, and now she is a novelist. Aside from writing, she works as a speaker and trainer, and she works with charities to help raise awareness and money in the hope that cancer will soon be about as scary as a wart.She lives in Northumberland.

QOTD!

Are you enticed by covers and titles?

Happy Reading Book Buddies!

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

“I love the world of words, where life and literature connect.”
~Denise J Hughes

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad ones.”
~Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“I read because books are a form of transportation, of teaching, and of connection! Books take us to places we’ve never been, they teach us about our world, and they help us to understand human experience.”
~Madeleine Riley, Top Shelf Text

Looking Ahead:

Come back on Friday for a full review of The Cactus by Sarah Haywood.
I recently previewed The Cactus in this post.

Links:

My Spring TBR is almost complete. I have one more title to read.

If you need a book for a Father’s Day gift, check out my ideas in this post.

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Unless explicitly stated that they are free, all books that I review have been purchased by me or borrowed from the library.

Book Cover and author photo are credited to Amazon or an author’s (or publisher’s) website.