Random Things Tours: The Bookseller´s Secret by Michelle Gable

 

1942. London. Estranged from her husband and family - on whose there are at least a Nazi, a communist and several fascists -, in her early 20s, Nancy Mitford, a successful writer in the making, decided to start anew. She starts by taking over the Heywood Hill bookshop. 80 years later there is another woman looking for a change that loves Mitford´s writings. However, it seems that there is a lost manuscript authored by her that a young American woman is searching for.

The Bookseller´s Secret by NYT bestseller author Michelle Gable is based on the adventurous life - that kind of adventures one is experiencing during hard times like a World War - of the successful novelist Nancy Mitford. I will try not to delve too much into the story as such, which has some very interesting turns and the perfect recommendation for a real book(ish) reader, but I would love to talk a bit more about the way in which the novel is built from the literary technical point of view. 

This novel which moves back an forth from the WWII times to our times and back again to the Second World War reads as a piano piece perfectly played with two hands. It is not symmetry between various fragments of the story, but it looks like those fragments, sometimes representing different time lines do complete and compete each other. One fragment in one timelines is shortly answered by another from the other timeline. It is a fascinating game of words which makes the story even more enjoyable.

The most visible characters in the story are women and they are profiled not only through their individual actions, but also as their solidarity and empathy. Reversing the usual narrative, men, like Le Colonel, the mysterious French man who encouraged Nancy to follow her dream as a writer, can be also an inspiration and a support for women. His presence is a welcomed apparition in this gallery of empathic, supportive humans. Maybe, indeed, books do help to become better humans. 

The Bookseller´s Secret is a captivating read, not only because it is set around a book mystery. It has its own life and a beating bookish heart hard to forget. At least for now.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own