What a charming read, a love letter to readers, books, and a bit of magic, is a beautiful combination.

Set in the 60s in the south of France, Marie-Jeann is a little girl who loves books, reads them, talks about them, and makes her own stories, books are magic, and one day she realizes that she also has a little bit of magic too, she can see small spheres of light around people that light up when they are near their soulmates, she will soon be a matchmaker. She lives with her adoptive father who runs a mobile bookstore, Marie-Jeann accompanies him through small towns, and she sets out to find the perfect books for the residents and their soul mates.

It's a lyrical story, has a dreamy style, and the narrators are mythical creatures, like Fate, Death, Oliver Tree, and others (this reminded me of The Book Thief and Lovely War). It's a story that makes you want to travel to the places mentioned, reread your favorite books, try to read more classics, and form a little book club with people who love books just like you do.

Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Random Books - Ballantine for the ARC

Read it if:
You love books
Enjoy slow stories
Want something with a dash of magic
Are you in the mood for something peaceful with relaxing cozy vibes

This book wasn't what I was expecting it to be. I was not a fan of the symbolism and ended up not finishing the book.

I wanted to love this so bad but the first half of the book absolutely dragged and kept me wanting for more. The second half did end up being more endearing but this was not for me.

This book has numerous fascinating characters, a glorious setting in Provence, thoroughly described in detail, as well as a loving depiction of a way of life in the French countryside that rarely exists anymore. It doesn't have an actual plot, but is more of a lyrical storytelling experience that meanders like a river, takes frequent detours, and eventually is quietly subsumed into a greater whole.

Once I understood that the purpose of the book was not really to tell a story, but rather a rumination on the themes of love, fate, chance, death, etc. I stopped expecting anything much to happen and instead slowed down and switched on the philosophical side of my brain to digest it better. It is beautifully written, but a bit too dense and packed with too many life lessons. I kind of wish the author had picked just a few main themes and stuck to those instead of trying to pack a whole universe of wisdom as well as a whole range of diverse characters into one relatively slim book. My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

The beginning of this book is slightly confusing and I feel this would be a great audiobook listen as a lot of the names/words are in Italian and I know I am 117% butchering the pronunciations.

The story revolves around a special girl names Marie Jeanne who is somewhat mythical and can see glowing hands, face, head etc on people around her but no one else can. There’s this magical olive tree that also gives wisdom to her. The book is a lot about the unseen factors in life that determine our decisions like: love, death, friendship, jealousy, passion, fear, hate, etc.

Throughout the course of the book Marie is connecting others together in the form of love but delivered by books via the “bookabus.” The big question is, is if Marie ever finds love on her own or if she is just destined to be the one helping everyone else find love.

The Little Village of Book Lovers is a whimsical piece of magical realism set in southern France in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It’s narrated by Love (other characters mentioned include Fate, Logic, and Chaos), but follows a group of people living in a small village in Nyons. Marie-Jeanne has the gift of being able to see love in the form of “southern lights” on people’s bodies, but she has no such light of her own. While she can set others up with their soul mates, she, sadly, will never find her own love.

In the first half of the book, the main focus is on Marie-Jeanne’s dad, Francis, as he spreads a love of reading throughout their village. Previously suspicious of books, all the inhabitants soon become avid readers and discuss the many classic novels they all regularly read. This is how we meet a wide cast of characters around town, many of them single and pining for love.

The second half of the book focuses more on finding your soul mate and opening up your heart to love. This is where Marie-Jeanne steps in, helping nudge people in the right direction of their one true love. Even so, she wishes she could be one of those people finding her own soul mate.

The Little Village of Book Lovers is a sort of parable, and between its main plot, it’s also filled in with numerous asides about various characters and themes. It’s charming, but this format is part of what prevented me from fully connecting with the story overall. While it’s a quick and easy read, it feels very surface level. It’s somehow both warm and rather distant from the characters. Even the many mentions of well-known books were nice, but not enough to hold my interest.

One oddity that rubbed me the wrong way: There’s only one queer character here, but for some reason she’s the only one who a) doesn’t get to find love (as her soul mate died many years ago) and b) insists that she doesn’t want love in the form of physical intimacy. Why is she singled out like this? It feels homophobic?

In any case, one early line in the novel that stood out to me is this: “If love is the poetry of the senses, books are the poetry of the impossible.”

The Little Village of Book Lovers is a cute and fanciful novel, but I don’t think I was the right audience for it. The writing style isn’t to my taste, but might appeal to fans of magical realism and books with wider casts of characters.

The best way to describe this book is that it felt like a warm hug. This was an absolutely sweet story about a young girl in 1960s South of France, Marie-Jeanne, who has the ability to see little lights on others' bodies that act as manifestations of love. Her foster father decides to start a mobile library business, and along with him, she spreads stories and love throughout her village. The novel is narrated by Love, whom which Marie-Jeanne has a special connection with.

I decided to read this book after finishing a couple heavy books that led me to feel an impending book slump. This novel absolutely stopped that slump in its tracks. It reminded me of all the reasons we love stories - their ability to bring people together, transport us to different worlds, and allow us to live a multitude of lives. The descriptions of the story also highlighted the qualities of love - its ability to apply to everyone, how each individual feels and shows love differently, and the ways love can nourish our lives. I felt refreshed, invigorated, and inspired upon finishing the novel.

One of the key features of this novel that readers may enjoy or feel uncomfortable by is its narration by Love, and characters including Wonder, Fate, and Death, which are embodiments of the forces that make up human nature. Personally, I felt that this unique feature of the novel was refreshing and allowed me to consider different perspectives that I had not in a very long time. For the story's plot being relatively small-scale, it was the exact type of story I needed to remind me of why I read, and why the desire for human connection is so fulfilling.

I am so grateful to have had this book be the first ARC I received from NetGalley, as it served as an inspiration for why I have chosen to throw myself into my reading. This book was as bookish as it was beautiful, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this digital ARC.

At first, I wasn't sure about this one. I was confused and kept asking myself how it had anything to do with books. The more I read, though, the more I realized how truly lovely this story was. Told from the POV of Love, it is magically realistic in the way that we always ponder the how, why, when, where, and who we will fall in love. While Love (and in this case Marie Jeanne) can give love a nudge, it is up to us to have open hearts, eyes, and souls. Books become the conduit to allowing the minds to truly open up to the world and love. The author uses amazing imagery, allegory, metaphors, and fantasy to weave a really good story together.

I was so excited when I saw this book being touted as a companion piece to The Little Bookshop in Paris. I read that book in 2016 and while it’s not the freshest thing in my mind (seven years and at least five hundred books later), I remembered loving the characters, the imagery and the flow of the book. I had hoped to find the same here, but I felt like this one fell flat in a lot of ways.

The beginning (and, honestly, a good half the book) seems to be in third person. We get to know Francis and several other amazing characters with this. But then “I” keeps coming forward. Love- yes, the embodiment of the emotion- comes in talking about her job, her family (Death, Hope, Logic… you get the idea), and adding asides on how they see the people and things around them. I think this was the author trying to take a stab at different genres, though I could be wrong. There’s a bit of magical realism here, but as there’s also the olive tree and Marie-Jean’s ability…. I think that’s too much of the magical to be strictly considered so. For me, what it did was land it in the genre of metafiction. Love, with her asides, drew me out of the story and made me remember that these characters I love so much are fictional- that I am reading a book instead of hearing about friends. I hold back on claiming Histiographic metafiction because the author never actually tells us this, and infact treats them as real. It is the jarring motion between narratives that remind me again and again that it’s fiction.

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Maybe I am wrong, and the author didn’t want to try different genres, only wanting to create Love. I could wish that it was a cleaner break between narratives. Some times there will be headers, or a different font… but in the copy I got, it didn’t always happen (hopefully that will be changed in the finished copy). It just seemed a bit sloppy to me.

Aside from the technical and flow of the book, though, it was amazing. The characters were brilliant and I wanted more time with all of them. I loved seeing them move together. Francis and Elsa have a special part in my heart. There is a miniscule tie in to the earlier book which was lovely, but not nearly enough for me to think of it as a sequel. This can be enjoyed as a solo book if you haven’t read The Little Paris Bookshop (though I recommend that book for its own sake- five stars all the way). Marie-Jean is a fantastic character and I loved watching her grow. Even Love was an interesting character, well formed and rather charming. I see a lot of other readers talking about all the “Quotable Moments”. There were tons of pieces that I loved so much I had to stop and think about them and, in some cases, write them down. George is an amazing writer and always had that effect on me.

All in all, I found this book enjoyable, but not their best. The bones are good- great characters, and interesting premise and glorious imagery. Honestly, I am planning on buying a paper copy to revisit my favorite parts. There were a few issues with execution, but it was a great book despite it all. Three stars.

⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
On the adult content, there isn’t much. Some language, light flirting… nothing over the top. It’s geared toward adults, I would say seventeen and up.


I was lucky enought to recieve an eARC from Netgalley and Random House Publishing in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.

A story narrated by Love... The characters are very charming and I really enjoyed the small town setting in France. This story is made for those who enjoy books about books. Fans of Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop will enjoy this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this ARC.

This book is so special. A love letter to love, books, and the power that both have to change lives. So enjoyed that Love, Fate, and Death are important characters in the story. “She regarded books like the sea-she could swim through them . . . her plan was to look back at the end of her life over the long and exciting course she had swum through times and hearts and currents of knowledge and different worlds and emotions.” Highly recommend, releases Tuesday, July 25th!

Wasn’t a fan of this one but I do remember liking THE LITTLE PARIS BOOKSHOP but I think my reading taste has changed and I no longer can tolerate such flowery writing. And I also just did not enjoy how cheesy it was - Love as a narrator?!? Come on!!!!

The Little Village of Book Lovers didn't work for me. I just couldn't get into it. The writing style was hard for me to follow.

The Little Village of Book Lovers, by Nina George, just did not work for me. While I loved George's previous work, my imagination could not quite accept the personified Love serving as narrator. The plot meandered in many directions without a great deal of plot progression. Nonetheless, George's ability to use language to create a mood and sense of fantasy is masterful. While this book might not have worked for me, I am confident that many others will love it. Please read other reviews before passing on this selection. Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read a digital ARC.

I am normally a huge fan of books about books, bookshops, and libraries, but this book just did not work for me. As hard as I tried, I just could not get into it. I was not a fan of the writing style, and just couldn't find an emotional connection to any of the characters. To me, this was more of a love story than a story about books, so maybe that is where our paths diverged. Overall, I would just say that this book was not for me.

So, I guess that there was a book in which this book within a book was mentioned. I didn’t read it. This was a book trying really hard to be quaint. I actually liked the idea of a book with love being the narrating character. It was not well executed. It was a book from another book for people who read the first book and wanted the book within the book. Not for me.

A sweet story from the heart of France in the 1960s. The book follows a young girl Marie-Jeanne who begins using her special abilities to see the glow and marks left by Love to serve as a matchmaker in her village, often through the mobile library she helps operate. But with each match, she questions herself and when she will find her own “southern light” soulmate. The narrators change throughout the novel, including Love, Death, and an olive tree.
This is a quick but sweet new novel from Nina George. The story, itself, is beautiful, but the constant changing of narrators (and not always making it clear who is narrating) sometimes made the story hard to follow.
Thank you to Random House Ballantine for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This will release on 7/25!

THE LITTLE VILLAGE OF BOOK LOVERS by Nina George is my latest effort to try something outside my usual genres.

The story is narrated mostly by Love with a few other characters like Fate and an Olive Tree as well as 3rd person narration. It centers around a girl, Marie-Jeanne who grows up in an unusual family and can see love in the form of glowing "Southern Lights" on them, but cannot see any on herself.

This felt very much like a fable. There was a lot of commentary inside the story given by various entities.

I have read George's Little Paris Bistro and felt it was a sweet story, and when I chose this, I expected something similar. While it was sweet, it was also a bit much for me. I think my mood was not in this. I found the story choppy and hard to follow despite its short nature, and a bit too dreamy.

For those who have read The Little Paris Bookshop and loved it, I imagine this will be a lovely follow-up. Also those who love a sweet love story using books may enjoy this tale.

It was OK for me. ⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to @netgalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read this ARC and share my thoughts in advance of the July 25th pub day.

The Little Village of Book Lovers
This book is about love and books.
Marie-Jeanne was an orphan who lived with her foster parents, Francis and Elsa in the bucolic village of Nyons. The village was nestled between mountains in the south of France.
Francis decided that the area needed access to books and set up a “bookabus” , a mobile book truck that toured the area filled with books for locals to borrow. The idea was initially met with resistance but eventually caught on. Marie-Jeanne traveled with Francis and got to meet several lonely book lovers.
The young girl had an uncanny ability to see lights on the bodies of some of the villagers. She learned that those lights indicated where the people had been touched by love. She also discovered that she alone could see the lights.
Then Marie-Jeanne decided that she had to set up something to make the lonely people meet the person they were meant to love.
The narrator of the story is Love and many parts of the story contains quotes about love and books and their effects on humans.
This book was first mentioned in the author’s international best seller, The Little Paris Bookshop, which she wrote in 2013. This is a story that will inspire book lovers and also those who enjoy stories about rural France.
I received an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The story starts out very slow with so many characters that I had a hard time keeping everyone in order.
All in all, a ok read but not one I’d want to read again.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.