I love Bookstagram. I love all the fun challenges that I get tagged in and the interactions. Sometimes, the challenges make you really think. Last week, a challenged asked "what is your comfort read?"

I didn't have one.

I messaged a friend and she said she said she didn't have one either.

But, that has changed in a period of a week. The Library of Borrowed Hearts is now my comfort read.

At first, I didn't know what to expect with this book. And to classify what it is, is kinda impossible. It gives me everything that I love in one book. Multiple POVs, love, humor, flashbacks to create depth in characters, and a trail of questions and mystery. If this book spit out french fries after every chapter, I would have read it all in one sitting.

I fell in love with Chloe and her family of lovable quirky misfits. But, the star of the show is her cranky neighbor, Jasper. He was the biggest mystery of all.

This book is perfect for book lovers and speaks our language. It's callbacks to classics made me smile and increased my TBR(which is already longer than a CVS receipt.)

The story was filled with twists and just when you thought you knew where it was going, it gave you a different chapter with a DIFFERENT POV. I loved it. I wouldn't have been surprised if at the end, the last chapter had my name on it. It would have been the shortest chapter of all.

"Chapter 37......Dan"
"The science teacher with the dad bod loved this book. It is way past his bedtime but he needed to finish this book. He wiped the tears off his face and stared at the wall for another hour...already missing this book."

An easy 5 stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book really didn’t hold up. There was no chemistry in the 1960’s “love story” and Catherine was insufferably selfish. I was honestly bored by the notes they left in the book and really didn’t get anything from that storyline. The present day chapters were more interesting when they weren’t focusing on the “mystery”. Chloe and Zach could definitely been developed more than they were. I really wanted to like Jasper, but his life seemed too sad and pathetic to even be believed. The main couple certainly could have had other options, Jasper was robbed of a life he deserved, and Catherine wasn’t worth it. Sadly, I just couldn’t become invested in the book.

This book was such a nice surprise! I didn't expect to love it as much as I did, especially considering my past experiences with ARCs, but this was definitely the odd one out (in a positive way). Starting from the writing, which is the first thing I tend to notice, I have to say it was very good and you could tell the author wasn't taking herself too seriously. The speech flew nicely enough to keep me glued to the page and the short chapter were an added bonus. As for the story, I must admit I wish it had been a little bit better developed: it really felt like a first draft and it was laking structure, especially when it came to the romance and the characters, which I really loved and would have liked to get to know a little bit more. Aside from that, I really enjoyed all the minor tropes, especially the found family one, and the several literary references were very much appreciated.
Overall I very heartwarming read that I surely would recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley and SourceBooks Casablanca for the arc! This heartwarming book follows Chloe as she is raising her 3 younger siblings and working at the library. This title has a band of characters with a common passion around books and their library which cultivates unique friendships. This is truly a sweet story about love and finding your community!

All the yes.

I loved it. Every character is great. Sweet Noodle. This was the book I needed. Thanks to Elli for the rec. ❤️

My favorite lines:

It was too early in the day for kindness and understanding. A man needed some time to adjust first.

When Chloe looks at me, I can see the whole world. When Mom looks at me, all I see is her.

Thanks #netgalley for the copy!

Thanks to NetGalley and SourceBooks Casablanca for this copy of "The Library of Borrowed Hearts."

Such a sweet, heartwarming, tender book about love, family, choices, and the power of books.

Chloe Sampson works in the local library and takes care of her brothers and sister after their mother left them.

She finds a book with notes from J and C handwritten in the margins and is intrigued by this romantic puzzle from the past.

Chloe has her hands full between raising her 4 siblings and working at the library, but when she finds an old book that has love notes written back and forth between two patrons, she’s determined to make time to find more out about the couple, even if it means enlisting the help of her grouchy neighbor, Jasper. This charming contemporary story is filled with literary references and a touch of romance.

I absolutely adored the story telling in this book. I actually loved bouncing between the dual timelines and dual POVs and couldn’t wait to continue where we left off. This was another immediate 5 star from Lucy Gilmore.

Chloe is a young library worker struggling to make ends meet and raise her three younger siblings. When she comes across a vintage copy of Tropic of Cancer in the library’s basement storeroom, she knows she’s found something special. When she discovers love notes scribbled in the margins of the book, she’s worried that her treasure’s resale value has tanked, but for some reason her curmudgeonly next-door neighbor Jasper is willing to pay thousands to take the book off her hands. Chloe soon finds herself fascinated by the young lovers and embarks on a kind of literary scavenger hunt, eager to learn more about what happened to their romance.

This is a sweet story with a lot of heart. It will likely appeal to many readers, but I just wasn’t the right audience for this book. It’s jam-packed with literary references from Hemingway to Wuthering Heights all the way up to the Warriors cat books that my son loves and even the author’s own previous book, but it leans heavily on the classics. Despite my lifelong love of reading, I’m not a fan of the classics, so these numerous excerpts and their links to the notes between the young lovers didn’t do much for me. It felt like the author spent too much time on this aspect of the book and not enough on character development. Fans of A Man Called Ove (like me) will surely love cranky old Jasper, but I couldn’t connect with either of the FMCs. I felt like I hardly knew anything more about Chloe at the end of the book than I did when it started, and I couldn’t relate to Catherine at all.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for providing me an advance copy of this book.

Similar to Gilmore’s earlier novel, The Lonely Hearts Book Club, in that a band of characters with an interest in books and their local library sparks unlikely friendships. However, this novel is so much better.

The writing, the character development and especially the humor were on point. Chloe Sampson and her twister of siblings were a delight. She was able to create distinguishing personalities in each sibling without spending too much time on them. They felt lovable and exhausting and fun. Chloe felt 3 dimensional thus her relationships to others in the story followed suit. The callback to other novels, the time jumps, everything really worked.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Library of Broken Hearts is the first book from Lucy Gilmore I have come across and I loved it so much that when thte audiobook became available when I was a few chapters in that I decided to do a readalong and I loved it even more!

I am not normally a fan of multi-narrator audiobooks, but this was an absolute delight, a stellar performance where everybody played their part authentically and with style. Excellent portrayal of the cadances of the different era's by Leanne Woodward, Aven Shore, Joe Jameson and Bob Ball

Chloe Sampson is an assistant in a library, she is tasked to clear out an old, dusty basement, full of books long left unread. It is here that she comes across a rare book, banned because of its themes, damp, mildewed but a potential $1000 sale online. The book is "The Tropic of Cancer" and she is blindsided when her neighbour (Jasper) offers to buy it instead. Why is he so keen on it? Why is he after a book in such a state? It is at this point, that Chloe looks deeper, and notices the notes in the margins. Are they just notes? Or something more?

(The premise of a love story played out in the margins of books long consigned to a dusty basement is brilliant and how do C and F relate to Chloe's mysterious old neighbour?)

Chloe has a dichotomy in front of her. She needs to make money to support her and the 3 abandoned siblings she has just been reunited with, but she also has a deep love of books and is intrigued at finding more and more books in which a long-lost love story is playing out

This book is written beautifully and sent me into so many different reactions, through joy and incredulity to a tear or two and lots of chuckles. A love story played out through the decades and lives lived through adversity and avarice. Brilliant

Thank you to Netgalley, Sourcebooks, Sourcebooks Casablance, Dreamscape Media, Lucy Gilmore and the narrtors for this awesome ALC and ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

It's no surprise that readers gravitate towards stories about books, and I am no different. I LOVE when books are set in bookshops, libraries or just involve books in some capacity. This book follows two main characters, a librarian Chloe Sampson who is working hard to be able to provide for herself and her siblings who one day finds an incredibly rare edition of a book and her neighbor Jasper Holmes who wants to buy said book from her. The book has notes written on its margins that leads Chloe through a scavenger hunt to unravel the mystery behind the notes.
This was an incredibly fun book that takes place in dual timelines and I enjoyed both povs. The ending was a bit abrupt in my opinion and I kind of wanted/expected more?

3.5 stars
As a librarian, I was drawn to this book for obvious reasons. It took some time to for me to get into this book, but by Part Two I was hooked. This is one of the 1st books that I've read that I found myself not liking or connecting on any level, with our main heroine, Katherine. I found her extremely selfish and unlikable. The mysteries of the story are what pulled me into the book. I can appreciate the difference of choices made in the 60's opposed to how things would've/could've been different now. Maybe my dislike for Katherine, is because of my love and protective feelings for Jasper? Probably. I hated, for Katherine to be a strong, capable, driven women, she had to trample Jasper's heart. I wish this happily ever after didn't feel so sad. The ending was just that....just done, ended.

The Library of Borrowed Hearts by L. Gilmore, published by Sourcebooks,
is a fantastic read, following the previous book.
Chloe Sampson works hard to make ends meet. The librarian is the caregiver for her three siblings. When she finds a basement full of books that are to be trashed her life is about to change forever.
This is an heartwarming, sometimes hilarious, but always always beautiful read. Told in dual pov, charming and witty, the only critque, where's the end??? I was left with questions and I'd like to get some answers - maybe in a new book?

⭐⭐⭐⭐

"The Library of Borrowed Hearts" by Lucy Gilmore is a charming and heartwarming tale that will capture the imagination of book lovers and romantics alike.

Librarian Chloe Sampson's life is anything but easy as she juggles taking care of her siblings and finding her own path. When she discovers a rare edition of a book at a flea market, little does she know that it will lead her on a journey of mystery and romance. The discovery of notes scribbled in the margins between two young lovers sparks a literary scavenger hunt that Chloe is determined to unravel, especially when it seems her neighbor, Jasper Holmes, may be connected to the story.

Gilmore expertly crafts a narrative filled with intrigue, romance, and unexpected connections. As Chloe delves deeper into the mystery of the two lovers, she finds herself drawn closer to Jasper and discovers that there's much more to him than meets the eye. Their blossoming friendship, intertwined with the clues left in the pages of old books, forms the heart of this enchanting story.

"The Library of Borrowed Hearts" is not just a tale of love lost and found, but also a celebration of the power of books to connect people across generations. Gilmore's writing is engaging and heartfelt, and her characters leap off the page with warmth and authenticity.

I liked The Lonely Hearts Book Club a lot so I was excited to see Gilmore doing more in that vein. I sped through this one and enjoyed it as well. I will say, the ending was quite abrupt and I would have loved to see more, however I feel like it also fit the story fairly well. It felt like the ending kind of underscored the possibilities to come.

As a fellow not-quite-a-librarian I really loved that bit of Chloe's character. And honestly, I just wanted to wrap her up in a hug and give her some hot chocolate. All the Sampson siblings, actually.

I'm not sure I would call this a romanee. There were two love stories that I enjoyed very much, and it was at parts swoony and tender, and romantic, but I personally wouldn't call it a romance novel.

I adored this book.

I absolutely adored how Gilmore crafted this with a dual timeline that is an interweaved, intergenerational story. The story weaves together these two timelines to give us a beautifully layered story.

The characters are real people with real struggles and triumphs.

The ending was perfect. It might not have been your typical "happily ever after," but it was happy in its own right. It was real, raw, and oh-so-satisfying. So if you're looking for a book that will sweep you off your feet, make you laugh, possibly cry, and ultimately leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart, then "Library of Broken Hearts" is an absolute must-read.

A whole lot of characters decorate the pages of The Library of Borrowed Hearts, and all of them enchant and captivate the audience. In the end the novel provides a heart-tugging feast that extolls the importance of wrapping your arms around the concept of love no matter how impossible it seems.

Chloe Sampson has been caring for her three younger siblings, Beatrice, Theodore, and Aloysius since their mother abandoned them. Working as a librarian, she finds herself clearing out the library’s basement while on duty one day, only to discover a copy of Tropic of Cancer hidden among the detritus. It is moldy and the cover is damaged, but the edition is a rare enough one from the 1960s that she becomes determined to sell it.

Then she notices the margins are stuffed with notes sent back and forth between two figures locked in a romantic tumult – C and J. Chloe quickly realizes that because of the annotations, the book won’t pay for her new roof. But when she brings the edition home and tries to retrieve the kids’ frisbee from her neighbors, Jasper Holmes sees the book and offers to pay a tidy sum for it. She realizes quickly who the ‘J’ is – but what of the ‘C’?

Inspired by their story, Chloe finds herself scouring the town for more of J and C’s marginalia. But can ‘C’ be found? And will Jasper open his hearth and home and let the Sampson family in?

The Library of Borrowed Hearts truly reminded me of Cynthia Voight in a lot of ways, as it’s about found families and opening hearts more than it is about romance.

I really loved Jasper and C’s’ unfolding romance. Some might find the choice which rent them apart a selfish one, but back in the day it was quite the realistic decision.

Even better is Jasper’s relationship with the Sampson family, all of whom are lovely. The slow blossoming of connection is perfection. There’s also a potential romance for Chloe with local, Zach, but be warned - both this and the J/C storyline leave things open with no definite HEA.

The novel also has a strong love affair with the literary world – heavy allusions to Wuthering Heights, A Farewell to Arms and The Haunting of Hill House linger.

But this book is delightful for what it is – a wonderful little story about finding love and searching out your people no matter the time. The Library of Borrowed Hearts is pure magic.

As a librarian myself, this book was a journey into a different realm that I was excited to explore. I absolutely loved this book and I wanted it to never end. I loved it and I know my patrons will too!

Librarian Chloe Sampson has been struggling to make ends meet as she is the sole caregiver to her younger siblings. She finds a book in the library that has notes written in it, clearly between two young lovers. Meanwhile her brother has an injury, and she needs help with him. Can she unlock the secret of the notes in the book? And in the process will she find community so that she is not so alone? Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.