I wanted to love this book but I struggled to finish it. I found myself putting it down very often. It just wasn’t grabbing my attention. There was a lot going on and I don’t like reading out physical and verbal abuse. This book was not for me.
Thank you NetGalley, Evie and HarperCollins for the ARC!

This magical, evocative story reads as a hymn of love for books and readers and kept me spellbound throughout. I very much enjoyed the dual narratives and the clever way they were woven together and felt so much empathy for the main protagonists.

A book about the magic of books? What is not to like about that? I loved the magical realism, the romance, and the way the author dove into the power of stories and the way they take hold of us to weave this one.

Martha flees an abusive marriage and goes to Dublin and becomes a live in housekeeper for an unusual woman at an unusual address. She meets Henry who is searching for a bookshop but the address brings him to Martha’s. Opaline, is a woman who discovers her family has tricked her and is now traveling the continent in search of an elusive memory. Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives. Now a magical bookshop is going to bring them all together and discover something wonderful. A great story.

Immersive and engaging. A recommended purchase for collections where bookish women's fiction is popular.

Magical and captivating. An absolute delight of a book. Martha is lost. She has left her husband and come to Dublin with nothing. There she meets Henry who is looking for a bookshop once owned by Opaline Gray. Henry saw the bookshop once when he was very drunk but it has disappeared.
Opaline's story is fascinating in it's own right. She adored her father who died when she was quite young and has a bullying, vicious brother who treats her appallingly.
Add in Madame Bowden who is the owner of the house where the bookshop stood and who becomes Martha's employer and friend and you have a delicious story of love, friendship and survival.
The book also has a brilliant line: Martha says to a young boy ' The thing about books is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of ' Which is, of course, why we all read.

This is a book for book lovers, with a dual timeline. ( a bit of magic), and the history of books, papers . It was unbelievable but totally believable at the same time, so many references and stories that keep you wanting more.

The Lost Bookshop – Evie Woods

I received a copy of this book through Net Galley.

Evie Woods is the pen name of author Evie Gaughan. Living on the west coast of Ireland Evie enjoys writing her books in her converted attic and enjoying the weather.



The tales told in this book all center around a magical book shop that has a habit of vanishing from time to time.

And it is this shop that Henry is determined to find as well as the missing second manuscript of Emily Bronte – if it even exists that is.

It’s on this journey that he meets Martha – a young woman on a journey of her own. Escaping an abusive husband and trying to find herself, who she is and want she wants from life.

Together they look for something magical and a touch other worldly. Digging up the truth about this bookstore they also uncover the story of Opaline. Like a ghost from the past Opaline is trying to escape the controlling clutches of her brother and live her own life when she discovers a quaint little shop and makes it into something else.



“The Lost Bookshop” is quaint story about a quaint little lost bookshop, with different timelines and stories trying to meld with each other. Generally, I don’t mind dual timeline but with this story it made it really hard to follow the story and see how it all was to meld together until the last handful. Unfortunately, that really affected my enjoyment of the story. It made the pace of the story telling seem really disjointed and very much stop and start. I did enjoy the scenes of Opaline – she has been through so much, so much hardness and sadness yet still managed to find some light in it all. Martha's own story had similar echoes of Opaline’s. I very much liked the concept of a magical, disappearing bookshop. I just wish the pace of the story flowed together a little more.

What a rollercoaster of emotions, anger, disgust,grief,fear,hope,
joy and anticipation all wrapped in an incredibly powerful story. The burden of always feeling controlled by others,living in their shadow,constant self doubt,not standing behind your choices and desires, questioning your abilities and feeling terribly unsure of yourself and your life choices can be a tremendous struggle. All the characters seem entangled in a world past and present,where their dreams are so close yet unattainable. Until,they believe in a bigger and better life they deserve.
The Lost Bookshop will keep you riveted to the end. I couldn’t stop smiling.
I received a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions in this review are my own.

Sounded interesting & promising, however seemed like too many ideas were trying to be crammed into one book and ultimately failed to deliver.

What a lovely story. I was thoroughly captivated by the characters and the twists and turns. I adored the two time periods and how they linked and related to one another.

Evie Woods explores some difficult and sensitive topics with great care and really brings the story to life, raising awareness of these matters.

This book was a joy to read and I’d happily recommend to others.

This book about a lost bookshop in Dublin that magically appears and disappears seemingly at its own will has three different points of view and two different timelines. There's Opaline, who found the shop in the 1920s, and there are Martha and Henry, who found the shop about a hundred years later. Slowly their stories unfold and those are not exactly picture perfect stories.

Although I liked the story, some of the magical realism elements felt a bit too random to me. I even flipped back a few times to see whether I had missed some information.

I loved the mystical feeling of this book it's the perfect book to curl up and read!
A couple meet by accident while he is looking for a lost book shop, a well written, original tale that draws the reader in
Loved it

Oh, this is a lovely book! A real fairy story of a tale, filled with interesting characters and unlikely happenings.
Occasionally confusing with the past and present mixing, I enjoyed it very much.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this book for review.

With references to books and meetings with authors such as Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce, this really is a book for bibliophiles. At times it's quite a dreamy read full of literary motifs, and I often pictured myself reading in the dimly lit basement rooms some of the characters stayed in.

The story has at its heart the alleged missing manuscript written by Charlotte Bronte. Part of this modern-day tale includes the search for a bookshop that no longer exists. Or does it? The hunt takes places in Dublin, London and Paris in the 1920s and modern day.

​There are three main characters whose first person chapters alternate. There are two young women who are both fleeing from abusive men and have romantic relations with attractive but unavailable men. It's easy to confuse the women's parallel lives despite one being from the 1920s. As the story progresses the link between the three of them tightens.

The book is well written and stylish, and the bookshop theme is enchanting. However, there is the menacing feel of women being oppressed and exploited by men, even the nice ones, domestic abuse and society's views on a woman's place and capabilities. There is violence although not described in any graphic detail, mostly alluded to.

A magical story with plenty of romance, it's easy to see how the popularity of this book keeps growing.

3.5 stars rounded up.

I found this a magical read, based around 3 intersecting lives and a bookshop (and person) that only appear to those who deserve it. Central to the story is women's position in society across the decades- women who are the property of men, and suffer abuse and controlling behaviour from the men in their lives. So at times this isn't a cosy, magical read, but it's all the more real for that.

Opaline is a fabulous character, and the writers love of books shines through on every page. It was a delight to read.

I wasn't expecting much when I grabbed this book - just a quick, unmemorable read. But I honestly really, really loved this. The way it ties in three different narratives was wonderful, I absolutely ADORED all of Opaline's scenes that took place in the past, and it was actually a bit heartbreaking at times.

I don't want to give too much away, but this book was about magic, love, feminism, being true to yourself, and persevering. Martha and Henry were sweet to watch, and Opaline is one of my new idols even though she isn't a real person.

I loved the magical element of this book, and it was a fascinating read. The dual timelines were inherent and made the story much more interesting.
Many thanks to Harpercollins UK and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a sweet story. I did have to pay attention at the start of each chapter as it kept switching between Opaline, Henry and Martha and I got a little confused sometimes because of that. I really liked it though and now I want to go to Ireland and see that magical bookshop!

I tried several times to engage with this novel but failed. It is beautifully written but not for me.