The Booksellers' Secret

The Bookseller’s Secret by Michelle Gable 400 pages

Out in my garage, there are a number of plastic tubs (about 30) brimming with books that I want to read. One of them is Mary S. Lovell’s “The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family.”  So naturally, when one of my favorite authors, Michelle Gable* decided to write a novel with one of the sisters, Nancy, as the historical protagonist in a duel-narrative timeline, I had to read it!

If you’ve never heard for the Mitford Sisters, they hail from an aristocratic English family and became particularly infamous in the 1930s. An eccentric group of ladies if there ever was one. The last sister died in 2014. (It’s well-worth jumping down the rabbit hole with both feet to learn more about them.)

However this novel is set in the 1940s and in contemporary times.

 In contemporary times, novelist Katie Cabot has hit a slump. For the last three years she has been searching for a subject for her next novel. One of her writer friends, Jojo, invites Katie to visit her in London, believing that a change of scenery will spark her creativity. On Jojo’s advice, Katie visits the Heywood Hill Bookshop and the place where one of her idols, Nancy Mitford worked during World War II.

While visiting the bookshop (which still exists today), Katie meets several characters, all who are searching for a missing manuscript autobiographical novel that Nancy supposedly penned while working there. (Fact: Nancy was a very successful author in her time). While there seems to be a lot of subterfuge, nothing seems to be truly at stake.

The historical timeline takes up most of the book---and is the most interesting, as readers get to know Nancy and her sisters. After Nancy began working at the bookshop, she, unintentionally, turned it into a literary salon, where her wealthy and writerly friends gathered on Sunday afternoons.

Sounds like a great read, doesn’t it?  For me it was slow…very, very slow. Even though Nancy’s section didn’t have any tension until the last third, it was my favorite. Katie’s contemporary section read more like a romantic drama than a search for an eighty-plus year missing item. And I never felt that Katie’s section had a real resolution. I felt like I was left hanging. Therefore, “The Bookseller’s Secret” receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

*If you haven’t read Gable, her two best novels, in my opinion, are “A Paris Apartment” and “The Summer I Met Jack.”