Author: Lucy Gilmore
Year published: 2024
Category: Adult fiction (romance)
Pages: 336 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): USA (WA)
Summary: Librarian Chloe Sampson has been struggling: to take care of her three younger siblings, to find herself, to make ends meet. She's just about at the end of her rope when she stumbles across a rare edition of a book from the 1960s. Deciding it's a sign of her luck turning, she takes it home with her―only to be shocked when her cranky hermit of a neighbor swoops in and offers to buy it for an exorbitant price. Intrigued, Chloe takes a closer look at the book only to find notes scribbled in the margins between two young lovers back when the book was new…one of whom is almost definitely Jasper Holmes, the curmudgeon next door.
When she begins following the clues left behind, she discovers this isn't the only old book in town filled with romantic marginalia. This kickstarts a literary scavenger hunt that Chloe is determined to see through to the end. What happened to the two tragic lovers who corresponded in the margins of so many different library books? And what does it have to do with the old, sad man next door―who only now has begun to open his home and heart to Chloe and her siblings?
Review: I have spent the last couple of weeks picking up and abandoning books. Until I got to this one. I loved it so much! I shouldn't be surprised since I also loved her other novel, The Lonely Hearts Book Club (link to my review). Both books touched my heart and made me cry. In a good way.
Gilmore is really good at creating characters that have conflict, become family, are multigenerational, and love books. Can I mention books enough times? The main female character is a librarian and the other characters all have strong relationships to books and reading. And in such a wonderful way. I am such a romantic that I love the idea of a couple writing notes to one another within the books they both read. I'm even okay with those books being classics. 🤣
I was swept up in this story from page one, enjoying the family drama, the literary references, the romance, and the tragedies.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Alphabet (Author)--G
- Cover Lover--someone with red hair
- Literary Escapes--Washington
- Mount TBR
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